Author's Note: *whew* Thank you all for making me feel so much better about my little risk in the last chapter! Hope you enjoy this next part and, no, the last bit of this was not at all inspired by the rerelease of a certain favorite movie of mine. ;)


David's little crack about Storybrooke being nutty may have released the emotional tension in the room, but Emma was now experiencing a serious case of regret. The room felt stuffy, the couch too small, the air too thin. She needed to get up and go do something … now.

She pushed the blanket off her legs and stood, groaning aloud when Snow stood up, too. "Stop," she grumbled, grasping both her and Henry's empty cocoa mugs in her hand. "I can walk to the sink by myself. It's ten feet away, for Christ's sake."

As soon as she stepped away from the couch, she felt guilty for her outburst. But honestly, her mother was behaving as if she were on her deathbed. She had a cold, for Christ's sake. She wasn't going to deny that the dizziness from earlier was frightening. It was scary to experience, at any rate, and she couldn't imagine it was any less scary to watch. That said, it had been hours since she'd had a dizzy spell, and the only thing that cured a cold was time. No amount of sitting on the sofa was going to hurry that process along.

Emma set the mugs in the sink and stood at the counter for a long moment, her eyes closed. Why had she told the story about the Johnsons? She hadn't been prepared for it, and her family certainly hadn't been prepared for it. What she had told them at the end was true; she did believe everything had worked out for the best. That belief, however, didn't make the experience any less painful.

A hand slid onto her shoulder, startling her. She whirled on her heels, expecting Snow, but it was David who had approached her. He set his and Snow's mugs into the sink without taking his concerned eyes off his daughter. "Are you all right?"

She looked past him to the rest of her family. For their part, Snow and Henry appeared to be deep in conversation. At least it didn't look like they were trying to listen in on what was going on at the sink. "I'm fine," Emma muttered in her father's direction.

"No, you're not."

The headache that had been bubbling under the surface all day long finally bloomed as anger surged through Emma's veins. "It's just a damn cold!"

"I'm not talking about your cold," he said gently. "That story was hard on you."

"It was years ago."

"Maybe, but the pain is still fresh."

Tears were beginning to well in Emma's eyes again, tears she did not want to cry. She shut her eyes and tried to regain her usually careful control. This damn cold was messing with goddamned everything. It took holding a couple of deep breaths before she felt the tears finally recede. "I'm fine," she repeated, opening her eyes and focusing her attention on the mugs in the sink.

The look on David's face made it clear that he didn't believe her in the slightest but thankfully, he didn't push it. He just stood with her as she turned on the faucet and let the water grow hot while squeezing a bit of dish soap onto the sponge.

David crossed behind her to her other side and pulled a towel out of the drawer so he could dry. She scrubbed the first mug in silence. It wasn't until she handed it over after rinsing it off that she blurted out, "I found them a couple years back. I couldn't find you but I could find them. They're still in Ohio, still married. The kids are all grown up now, obviously. Amanda even has a daughter of her own."

Emma still hadn't looked over at her father but she could feel his eyes on her. "Did you ever approach them?"

She shook her head. "It was enough to know that they're still happy. That things worked out for them–"

"That you made the right decision?"

She shrugged and once again focused the mugs. She raised her eyes to her mother and son, still talking over in the living area. "I wouldn't give this up for the world … you guys are my family. But sometimes I wonder if they think of me at all. If they wonder where I am now, if they'd be ..." She trailed off, suddenly realizing what she was saying and to whom she was saying it. Her father didn't need to hear this.

Regardless of whether he needed to hear it or not, he still insisted on being his typical supportive self. "If they'd be what, proud of you?"

And there were those tears again, goddamn it. She once again shut her eyes to regain control.

David turned off the water while taking the sponge from her hand. "Emma, look at me." She opened her eyes and almost hesitantly met her father's gaze. "I can't speak for the Johnsons, but I can tell you that your mother and I are more proud of you than you can ever know. For what you've done and what you continue to do. Not just for the fairy-tale hero stuff – although slaying a dragon makes any parent proud – but also for what you've done with Henry and with us … and for yourself. You grew up into a beautiful, loyal, amazing woman, my sweet girl, and I couldn't be a prouder father."

Well, that was just it. Emma's tears finally spilled over. "Okay, that was all kinds of unfair," she said through a self-deprecating chuckle. She swiped a hand over her face, trying to dry her eyes.

David chuckled as well, reaching out to dry her cheeks with the side of his thumb. The action reminded Emma of Snow doing the same thing in the castle, which brought a little smile to her face. These people really were her parents, weren't they? "What's so funny?" he asked her, his voice gentle.

"Nothing," she softly replied. He handed her the sponge back with a smile, and she continued to wash the other two mugs.

When Emma washed the final mug, David took it from her hand and told her she should go sit down on the sofa. As much as she hated to admit it, her body was beginning to tire from standing so long after sitting all day. Goddamned cold. Sighing, she headed back to the living area.

As she approached the couch, she caught the tail end of the story Henry had been telling his grandmother. "Each night before bed, she'd read the next chapter to me. It took us a month but we eventually got through the whole thing."

"What book?" Emma asked. She reclaimed her spot on the sofa and drew the blanket back over her legs.

"Sideways Stories from Wayside School."

"I loved that book!" After she got herself situated, she jokingly addressed her mother. "See, warden? I could get up, stand at the sink, and walk back over here without collapsing."

"I'll mark that down in your file," Snow replied with a smirk. "Maybe I'll be able to take some time off your sentence for good behavior."

Henry giggled when Emma playfully beamed at her mother. David rejoined the family at that point, smiling at the amusement on everyone's faces. "What did I miss?"

"Henry and Emma both love Sideways Stories from Wayside School," Snow summarized. When he raised his eyebrows at her in question, she simply shrugged.

"Oh, come on!" Emma exclaimed. "I can't believe you two don't know this book. Well, I can believe it, I suppose, because why would two adults from the Enchanted Forest have read it? But still!" A sudden thought struck her, and she shifted her gaze to her mother. "You were a fourth-grade teacher for twenty-eight years. You never read it to your class?"

"Not that I can recall," Snow replied. "It didn't sound familiar when Henry was describing it."

Emma just sighed and shook her head. "You two are so deprived. I mean, I haven't even seen a copy of it since I was Henry's age, so I have no idea how funny it would be to an adult. But when you're a kid, it's friggin' hysterical. My fifth-grade teacher read it to us a couple of chapters at a time, and I remember the entire class cracking up."

Snow smiled at her daughter. "What other books did you like to read?"

"Mostly ghost stories," Emma shrugged. "There was one I read that was so scary I refused to read it at night. I used to like scary movies, too. One of my foster brothers and I would sneak into scary movies whenever we got the chance."

David and Snow raised their eyebrows at each other, making Emma wince. The last thing her parents probably wanted to hear was that their daughter learned how to sneak into movies before she was even into her double-digit years. Henry, on the other hand, frowned at her. "How do you sneak into a movie?"

Emma sighed, glancing down at her son. What kind of mother taught her kid how to sneak into movies? Was there even a movie theater in Storybrooke? "Okay, never do this, but Jason would look in the newspaper and find when a G-rated movie and the one we really wanted to see were playing around the same time. We'd walk to the theater, buy tickets for the kids' movie, and then go into the auditorium where the scary one was playing. The first movie he got us into was Jurassic Park, and by the way? If any of you have not seen Jurassic Park, let me know and I will remedy that tonight."

"Let me guess," Snow deadpanned, "you like Jurassic Park."

"Oh, no," Emma said, shaking her head with mock seriousness, "I don't like Jurassic Park–"

"She loves Jurassic Park," Henry interrupted, giggling.

Emma grinned at him as she nodded her affirmation. "It's one of the five DVDs I actually own. So, we've all seen it, yes?"

Snow and Henry both nodded but David raised his hand with a sheepish cringe. "I haven't."

"Really?" Emma groaned. Sweet mother of God, how did someone go through life and never see Jurassic Park?

"What part of my being in a coma for twenty-eight years do you find so hard to grasp?"

Emma grunted as she started to get to her feet. "Where do you think you're going?" Snow asked.

"Upstairs to get the DVD," she answered, her tone indicating that it should have been obvious.

"Let Henry get it."

"I'm not an invalid," Emma said for what felt like the hundredth time.

"You're not going up the stairs," Snow told her in a tone that brooked no dissent. "Need I remind you that you almost passed out coming down those stairs this morning?"

Emma started to insist that she had not almost passed out, also for the hundredth time, but she didn't have the energy to argue. She plopped back down, gesturing for her son to go upstairs and retrieve the DVD for her. "Bottom dresser drawer?" Henry asked her with a sympathetic wince.

"Yep," she said through a resigned sigh.

He took off in a run as Emma slouched against the back of the sofa, defeated. She was oblivious to the amused glance her parents exchanged at her sulky behavior.

Less than a minute later, Henry came bounding down the stairs, DVD case in hand. "I'm kind of excited to see this again," he said as he handed the movie over to his mother.

Emma gave the case to her father so he could read the blurb on the back before turning to her son. "Wait a sec, Regina actually let you watch this?"

Not that Emma had room to talk, considering she was going to let Henry watch it. Plus, she had seen it when she was younger than Henry. She just didn't picture Regina as the type to let Henry watch a movie about dinosaurs on an island eating people.

Henry's face blanched as he looked up at Emma with a chagrined expression. "Well, um, it was on TV and she was running out the door for a city council meeting. She didn't know what it was and I knew she didn't have time to really investigate it, so I sort of told her it was an educational thing I needed to watch for school."

Emma couldn't help it: she grinned. "That's my boy." Then she covered, wiping the amusement from her face and putting on a stern look instead. "But if you ever do anything like that to me, you'll be in major trouble."

Henry giggled. "Yes, Mom."