The Once Upon a Time Virtual Series
presents
Virtual Season 3
Episode 8
"Family Matters"
Executive Producer: Silverbluemoon
Story By: RebelByrdie and Silverbluemoon
Written By: RebelByrdie
Illustrated By: Dalliance-Amongst-the-Stars
Direct-to-Media Illustrator: Love-Will-Have-Its-Sacrifices
Edited By: Notevildear-Wicked
Advisors and Consultants
Characterization: Rushemiiaah
Continuity and Consistency: AsraiaySoph
Research and Development Assistant: Archaeomedic
This series is Rated M for language, violence, drug references, and adult situations.
It is not intended for all audiences. Please use discretion.
Publication Date: 12/25/2014
Boston 1987
The inside of the little red car always smelled funny, and the smoke made her eyes and nose itchy.
"Put that out, or at least roll down the window."
The front driver's side window rolled down, and a blast of cool wind blew into the car, making the medallion hanging on the rearview mirror spin. The red socks and letter B twirled and shined in the afternoon light.
B was for Boston.
The window rolled back up and the driver, a sandy haired man with glasses, sighed and switched on the radio. The last lines of Cyndi Lauper faded away, and for a moment the only sound was the sniffling of the blonde woman, rounded out by a baby-filled belly in the passenger seat.
Then the pounding beat of the Beastie Boys fighting for their right to party began. She knew the song; it made her happy. She had her Mommy, her Daddy, her blankie, and her song. Mommy let her pick out her favorite pink jeans and her shirt with the shiny flowers. She hummed along, kicked her feet, covered in her dearest My Little Pony velcro shoes, and bounced happily. The barrettes in her hair clicked when she shook her head from side to side.
Other cars zipped past them, and when they finally turned into a parking lot she hoped they were going to the grocery store. Every time they went to the grocery store she got to ride the horsey by the door.
They pulled into a parking space, and she craned her head around to see. It didn't look like the grocery store, but there might still be a horsey or even a space ship. She wiggled and twisted and made the button on her seat go pop to set her free.
She bounced, ready to be out of the car. Daddy got out first and slammed his door with a hard bang. Mommy got out and made the front seat go up. She moved slower because she had a baby in her tummy. It was a small parking lot with a few cars and a big building, but it didn't look like a store.
"Where's this?"
There was a sign, The Massachusetts Department of Child and Family Welfare, and she could even make out some of the letters: C was for cookie.
"Emma." Mommy bent down slowly to look at her. "I know this is hard to understand, but..." Tears started to fall from her eyes, like she had an owwie.
"Mommy?"
"Oh Sweetie, I'm so sorry but we can't keep you anymore."
Emma looked from her Mommy to her Daddy; she really didn't understand.
"Daddy?"
He looked at her though his glasses. "We're not your real parents, Emma."
"Johnny!" Mommy looked at him with a mad face and yelled at him.
He bent over and placed a plastic Barbie suitcase, the one she'd put stickers all over, onto the ground.
"It's the truth, Haley."
Emma felt her tummy squirm and a yucky taste in her mouth. She started to cry. "Daddy?" Why was he being mean? Why was Mommy crying? What had she done wrong?
"Daddy?"
He stepped away. "We need to go, Haley."
Mommy wiped her tears away and then moved a thumb over Emma's face, wiping away more. "We're going to leave you here with Mr. Saul, Honey. You remember Mr. Saul, don't you? He's going to take you to a new home and a new family who will love you just as much as we do."
Emma felt more tears coming. "But we a family."
Mommy stood up, tears pouring down her face anew. "I'm sorry, Sweetheart."
Daddy opened the car door, and Mommy got in and took her seat.
"No!" Emma started to panic, "Don't go! I'll be good! I'll be good! I wanna stay with Mommy! Please!"
Mommy started to say something, but Emma couldn't hear her because Daddy slammed the car door. He didn't even look at her when he walked back around the car. He simply got in, and then he was gone and she was alone.
Emma was all alone with Mr. Saul. The man was tall and brown with only a little bit of hair. He smelled yucky. Emma followed him, though, because she didn't know what else to do. He carried her suitcase but didn't hold her hand or even smile at her. She didn't want to go with him. She wanted to go home with Mommy and Daddy and play with Buster the doggy. She was supposed to be a big sister soon. They didn't want her anymore, though. Their names matched, they were supposed to all be together—the Swans. Yet somehow she hadn't been enough, and family wasn't forever like on tv. She stood and watched the car drive away with her blanket in her hand, dragging against the ground. It was all she had, because she didn't have a family anymore. Family was a red car driving away, never to be seen again.
Emma jerked awake, and her dream—her freaking memory—faded away. She curled her hands into fists. Regina storming off in a huff had triggered what one of the cut-rate therapists DCF had sent her to had labeled as 'separation anxiety', which was, apparently, rooted in the fact that her birth parents had left her on the side of the road when she was a baby. Go figure, that sort of thing could mess a person like her up for life.
Emma looked over at her parents. They were snuggled together, sharing their heat in the chilly Neverland morning. Of course—after all, they were the perfectly "happily ever after" couple whose kisses broke curses. Freaking ridiculous. The fairytale couple that could apparently do everything but raise their own daughter. Nope, instead they'd stuck her in a magical tree and said bon-voyage, baby. Enjoy the hard knock life, and come back big and strong to save us all from the Curse.
She sighed. What kind of parents did that to their kid? She had spent years of her life missing her son. Years of telling herself she had made the right decision. She had spent long nights drinking and dreaming of the life she could have had with him. She had given him up for his own good, so he could have a better life than she could have ever given him. Why had Snow and David given her up? To save their own asses. To free their happy little kingdom. To be their secret weapon against the Evil Queen. The Swans had given her up too, for their own good, so they could have a nice, shiny new baby. Bullshit. So much bullshit.
Then, just when she had her shit more or less together and thought she'd found a family and a home, things had gone tits up. Now, she was stuck in Neverland with a drunk pirate, her lovey-dovey parents, and no Regina or Henry. Henry had been taken away from them. Regina, Emma shook her head defiantly in the early morning light, Regina had left her—another red car driving away.
She sat up, knowing it was time to get up and face another day of Indiana Swan and The Island of Doom. Her personal shit storm of feelings would just have to wait.
Neal had been in some tight spots and terrible situations before, most of which had been on Neverland, actually. He chided himself because he used to be tougher, more familiar with this environment when he'd been a kid. Now he was old and fat, and he really wanted a handful of Excedrin and an ice cold beer. Oh, and nurses—pretty, pretty nurses in colorful scrubs who would bring him IV bags full of delicious drugs. There were no hospitals on Neverland, though, no pretty nurses, and not even ice to chill a damn beer. He pushed his way through the brush and sighed with relief when he found himself on a small rocky beach. It was another small safe haven which he hoped one other person still frequented.
Neal rummaged around the rocks until he found was he was looking for—a conch shell. He chuckled, lifted the shell to his lips, and spoke into the pink spiral of the shell. Then, he eased himself down to sit on a rock and wait. His arm and shoulder still ached and burned, but the nausea and other fun side effects from drinking the rancid berry wine had finally worn off. He didn't have to wait for long.
A splash alerted him to another presence, and Neal turned his head just in time to see a red gleam rise from the sea. The merman rose up, red hair slicked back against his scalp, and he grinned at Neal. His neck and chest were covered with strands of beads, shells, odds and ends, a cracked monocle, a gold fork, and a very familiar blue diamond. If James Cameron knew his story was real, he'd probably shit a solid gold brick.
The merman swam closer, so Neal pushed himself to his feet and waded out into the shallows to meet his old friend. "Ariel." He smiled for the first time since he'd come to. "You are a sight for sore eyes." The merperson smiled and reached out to poke Neal in the stomach.
It was like no time had passed at all, except that it had. "Yeah, yeah." Neal chuckled. "I'm a lot older and a little fatter." Ariel quirked a brow. "Okay, maybe a lot fatter."
They settled down in the shallows where the surf slid over the wet sand as they caught up. Neal felt his story spill out of him: Emma, August, Tamara, Henry, his Dad. Ariel was a good listener, and not just because he didn't have a voice. He wondered if the merman knew that Disney had made a fortune off a half-assed retelling of his story? Probably not. And honestly, movies were a pretty difficult concept to grasp and even harder to explain.
He handed Ariel an arrow without having to be asked, and they fell into their old methods of conversation using sketched out symbols in the sand and hand signals. Ariel had plenty of adventures of his own to share. It was almost like old times. They laughed together, relaxed, and for the first time since he'd arrived, Neal felt safe. "No I'm serious, Ariel. Storybrooke has this crazy-" he moved his finger around his temple without even thinking about it, "-mix of royalty and magic, and then you turn around and see cars and cell phones."
. . . Thank you for reading! You can now receive update alerts by following/favoriting this story here on ff.n (or subscribing on ao3), as a portion of each new episode will be uploaded in both locations as soon as we publish on our main site. Please find the rest of this episode *AND* its amazing illustrations at ouatvs *dot* com.
