Author's note: Just finished taking the hardest final ever, and to celebrate I'm posting another ch. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 9

David watched in amusement as Mary Margaret raced around the apartment, frantically shoving knick knacks into drawers and taking down pictures.

"What are you doing?"

"Emma thinks its still three years ago." Mary Margaret replied as she perused a ceramic bird figurine. "Was this here then?" She muttered, turning to David.

He shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?"

"Whatever. I'll just tell her it's new."

"So you're redecorating because…?"

God. Men could be so dense. "I have to get everything to look like how it did or else she'll think something's wrong." She placed another framed photograph of her, David, Emma, and Henry into an open box at her feet. "Remember what Whale said? We have to go along with what Emma thinks."

"Right."

"Speaking of which, here." She tossed a duffel bag at her husband.

"What's this for?"

"Go pack some clothes. You're bunking with Hook and Ava."

"But…" David protested.

"No buts!" Mary Margaret stomped her foot. "What's going to happen when Emma gets home and sees you and all of your stuff in here? As far as she knows, David Nolan broke Mary Margaret's heart. If she sees you living in here…"

"She'll freak out." David snapped his fingers. "Got it." Without another word, he headed to their bedroom. "I guess Hook and I could use some quality time." He joked.

"Don't have too much fun." Mary Margaret called back. She turned back to the apartment. Emma's bed made? Check. Emma's clothes that Hook had brought back scattered in her old room? Check. All evidence of David gone? Check. Boxes littered the floor and without David's DVD collection and other random belongings, it looked strangely empty. "Did this place always look so depressing?"

"Yes." David came up behind her, duffel bag in hand. "It did."

Mary Margaret sighed heavily. "This is just temporary. Right?"

"I certainly hope so."


The first thing Emma saw as she entered the apartment was a banner. The banner that had been used at Mary Margaret's welcome back from jail party. Strangely enough, though, it looked like someone had added "and Emma" to the end in tiny letters, and then crossed out the big letters spelling out Mary Margaret's name. Odd.

"Nice banner." She commented.

"Uh, thanks." Mary Margaret said, looking weirdly flustered. "Henry made it."

Emma looked around the apartment. Something was off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "Is that new?" She pointed at a ceramic bird figurine on a shelf.

"Hmm? Yeah." Mary Margaret set down Emma's bags. Emma had insisted on carrying them herself but her roommate had argued that Whale had said no heavy lifting for a while.

"Finally, a shower without any nurses interrupting." Emma joked as she headed towards the bathroom.

"I don't think so." Mary Margaret said as she gently steered Emma towards the bed. "You need to go to bed."

"Aw, come on." Emma protested. "I'm not tired, Mom."

A strange look crossed Mary Margaret's face at the word "Mom" but it was quickly replaced by a stern look. "You heard what Whale said. Bed rest."

Emma opened her mouth to argue but found that she didn't want to. She was pretty exhausted despite lying in a bed doing nothing for a week. And there was something so comforting about how caring Mary Margaret was being. It was almost...motherly. Familiar too. And not entirely unwelcome.

God. She was letting Henry's fairytale theory get to her.

She must've drifted off, because the next thing she knew there was a presence in the bed next to her, a hand stroking at her hair soothingly. She opened one eye to find Mary Margaret next to her.

"Hey." She said sleepily.

"Oh!" Mary Margaret jumped, her hand jerking back. "You're awake. I-I'm sorry. I was just…"

"It's fine." Emma smirked. Funny. Normally she would've been creeped out, but she found herself being fine with it. Surprisingly comfortable with her roommate, like they were really family or something. Weird. Emma did not usually get all touchy feely with people. The painkillers were probably just making her loopy.

She pushed herself up into a sitting position. "So, you never did tell me what happened."

"What?"

Emma gestured to herself. "This. Everytime I ask you ignore me."

"Well..." Mary Margaret looked away. To Emma's sleep addled brain, it seemed as though she was trying to come up with an answer. "There was a, uh, burglar. He had a gun, and well you know. I came home to find you lying on the ground."

"Oh." Emma tried to imagine what it must've felt like for Mary Margaret to come home to that horrific scene. "I guess I have you to thank then."

"Mmm.." Mary Margaret said faintly. "Sure.

"Did they take anything?"

"I don't think so. Doesn't matter anyway. Not much here to take."

True. "That's good then." She hesitated before saying the next part."You know that I was planning to leave, right?" Emma asked. There really wasn't a way around it, and it had to be addressed. "If it wasn't for this, I'd be back in Boston by now."

"So you're still planning to leave?"

Was it Emma's imagination, but did Mary Margaret seemed to look panicky? "Well, yeah." Emma replied. "I know I should've told you and I'm sorry. I like it here, I really do. But I do think me leaving will be best for Henry."

"Are you sure?" She urged.

"Yes." Emma maintained. "I'm sure."

"Yeah, well, you heard Whale. You need to rest." Mary Margaret hopped off the bed and shot her a wry smile. "Looks like you're not going anywhere for a while." She patted her leg and left the room. "I've got some of that chicken noodle soup you like so much. I'll go bring you some."

As Emma watched Mary Margaret leave, already thinking ahead to watching some TV, she vaguely wondered why Mary Margaret almost seemed relieved that Emma was bedridden, unable to leave.


Staying with Hook wasn't half bad. As they sat back on the couch, sipping beers, watching some random slasher film, being sure to keep the volume down as Ava slept in the next room. If David ignored the reason he was here, this was almost...nice.

"Pass the popcorn." He reached an arm out, and Hook automatically set the rather large bowl into his waiting hand. The perfect, buttery snack coupled with the ice cold beer and the movie playing on the large TV almost made David forget why he was here. Almost.

"There are many things I miss about the Enchanted Forest." He commented as he set his feet atop the coffee table, something that Mary Margaret would protest at but Hook didn't seem to care. "But not the absence of movies. Whoever invented the TV is a genius."

"Aye." Hook raised his bottle of beer. "I'll drink to that, mate."

They were both on their third or maybe fourth beer each. The moment David had stepped through the door, both of them had looked at each other awkwardly, unsure of what to do given the events that had recently transpired. But then David had suggested a movie, and three hours later they were both stretched comfortably on the large leather sofa. Both had felt the need to get drunk. It could be argued that that was because that was part of a regular guy's night, but both knew better.

The drunker they were, the easier it would be to forget, at least momentarily, the predicament they were all facing.

"Oh!" Hook crowed as the serial killer sliced his knife through a nondescript character's stomach. "That's bloody disgusting." He laughed.

David burped in response. "Amen."

"I bet none of them could best me in a fight." Hook commented as he brandished his large silver hook.

"Dude." David pointed drunkenly at the screen, where the killer was busy shooting everything within a ten mile radius. Someone collapsed with a grunt, clutching their chest. "You'd be dead meat if you ever came across him. Look at the size of his gun."

And just like that, both fell silent.

"God." David said finally, sounding suddenly sober. "Every time I think of that son of a bitch…" He trailed off.

"Aye." Hook responded. "Mighty lucky for him that he's locked up in jail."

"I don't know what's worse, the fact that Emma has an awful, stilted version of reality or that she lost her memories at all."

"Because if she lost all of her memories it'd be easier to convince her of the truth." Hook finished, knowing instinctively what David was saying. He'd been feeling the same way as well.

"Exactly. We were making so much progress." David lamented, tipping his head back to finish off his bottle. "Finally got to be a family. And now she's back to being the closed off, jaded woman she was before."

"I don't know how much longer I can keep telling Ava her mother's at work. I can't care for her all on my own." Hook added. "I do believe that eventually she'll regain her memories but there's no telling how long that could take."

"That'll be the least of our worries if she decides to leave." David said heavily. "According to Mary Margaret Emma was planning to leave. If she does…"

We'll never see her again. Hook finished internally. He figured that Emma might come back once in a while to see Henry and Mary Margaret but what about him and Ava? As much as Ava loved her mother, she would eventually forget about her. What would happen then?

There was a clunk. "What?"

David and Hook looked up to see Henry, one hand clutching his backpack which now rested on the floor, evidently the source of the noise, his face a mask of shock and worry.

"Lad? What're you doing?" Hook squinted. "Aren't you supposed to be at the queen's?"

"It's the middle of the night." David added.

"I wanted to come back. My mom drove me." Henry answered. This was just further testament to the fact that everyone was being extra nice to Henry; normally Regina wouldn't have driven Henry back when he was staying with her.

"I-is what you said true?" Henry's voice wavered. "Is Emma going to leave?"

"No, of course not." David answered immediately. But his eyes were downcast, refusing to meet Henry's.

"She is, isn't she?" Henry said. "That's what she thinks she was planning to do."

"We're not going to allow it." Hook said, trying to calm Henry down.

"No offense, but she doesn't know who you are. She won't listen." A small, devious smile slowly began to spread on his face. "But me, on the other hand…"

Author's note: What's Henry gonna do? Will Emma really leave? Hope you enjoyed the Hook/David bonding; couldn't resist putting that in :)