Phew, the response to my last chapter was awesome! Thanks so much! So the next few chapters just went under major re-writes, so I apologize for any extra typos or mistakes that I didn't catch in self-editing. The good news is, since this chapter ended up so long and had to be divided into two chapters, I'll can probably be convinced to update tomorrow. :)

Some real Emma drama on the horizon, folks. Hold on to your hats.

After crying in my arms just once, it was like Emma had no more tears to shed. She didn't cry at Henry's funeral, or anytime that I could see after that. I worried about her constantly, despite the appearance that she was handling it fine.

Elsa tried to tell me that she was just coping in her own way, and it was true that Emma was not one for outward emotion. She told me to let her be, to let her come to me if needed. But how could I do that?

I tried just to get her talking, tried to give her an outlet. But the more I pushed the more she pulled away, until we were barely speaking at all.

Her grades began to slip, so I asked if she wanted to take a little while off school, maybe homeschool, but she only asked why I was trying to lock her up and stormed off.

One afternoon August called – the first phone call in months.

"Auggie!" I exclaimed, cradling the receiver in both hands. "Honey, it's so good to hear your voice!"

"You too, Mom!" he said. "You have no idea."

"Where are you?"

"A small island off the coast of Thailand. It's gorgeous here, Mom, you'd love it! It's more like the Enchanted Forest than anywhere else I've seen! There's this fountain, it looks just like the one in the courtyard of your…"

"August," I interrupted him. Normally I loved nothing more than to hear of his travels, but right now I had only one thing in mind – Emma. "Son, when are you coming home?"

"Home? Uh…well…I don't know, not yet. How's Emma?"

"That should have been the first thing you asked."

He paused. "I'm sorry…you're right, I'm so sorry. She isn't doing good, is she?"

I blew the hair out of my eyes and leaned against the kitchen wall. "Horrible, August. She's keeping it bottled up. She won't even speak to me anymore. Her grades are slipping, she spends all her time in her room. I don't know what to do. If you were here, I think you could get her to open up. She loves you more than anything."

"I think you just have to give her time, Mom. You know how Emma is, she likes to process things in her own time, you can't rush it. And I know you, you're probably hovering."

"I'm not hovering!" I snapped, then lowered my voice again. "What do you expect me to do, just sit back and watch her suffer? I'm her mother!"

"And unfortunately this is something even a mother can't fix. When she's ready, she'll come to you."

I furrowed my brow. "That's what Elsa said."

"Granma is a smart lady. Look, I gotta go, but I'll try to call back tonight to talk to Em, okay?"

I sighed. "Okay. I love you Auggie, and I miss you."

"I love you too, kiss everyone for me."

"I will…bye," I hung up the phone slowly, then rested my forehead against the wall.

August did call that night, and had a long talk with Emma. I don't know what was said, but whatever it was, it must have helped because Emma came up to me before bed and hugged me goodnight.

"Love you, Mama."

I hugged her tight, relishing in the feeling, and blessing my son. "I love you too, my little Tree Nymph."

Emma chuckled. "You haven't called me that in a long time."

I smiled and tapped her nose. "You'll always be my little Tree Nymph. So long as you don't run away to live in the trees."

She snorted. "No chance of that."

I looked at her beautiful face, so young and yet so grown up at the same time. I could see the shadow that had been hanging over her the past five months was fading, revealing the real Emma once again.

"You know you can come to me…for anything. You know that, right?"

Emma smiled and kissed my cheek. "Yeah, Mama, I know. And I'm okay. I mean it this time. I miss Henry, but I realize…I can't just hole myself up and hide from the world. I wanna…be alive, you know?"

I nodded. "I understand. And you should. You should enjoy every single second of your life, especially your youth. Henry would want it that way."

This time when Emma smiled, it was first genuine smile I'd seen from her in so long, that my heart felt like it could burst. "Night, Mom."

"Night, Emma."

All thoughts of telling Emma about the curse were wiped away by Henry's death. There was no way I could even think of trying to burden her with that on top of everything else. Her mind and emotions just weren't in a stable enough place to take that in. But once she was healing I started to realize how much time had passed. There was only a little more than eleven years left, and while that felt like a long time, sixteen and a half felt like the blink of an eye to me.

And Emma was better, she seemed happier, if not back to normal. She was making new friends, when before it was really only her and Henry – Emma and Henry against the world – but she still wasn't talking much.

"How was school?" I would ask on any given day.

"Fine," was all I received, if that, when before I was treated to a play-by-play of her entire day.

"It's the age," Fred said. "Don't you remember when August got like that?"

And I couldn't argue; once he hit high school I had to drag the most mundane information out of the boy. But it felt…different with Emma somehow. Call it Mom Radar.

Late one night I was abruptly jolted out of my sleep, unsure at first what it was that awoke me. I rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock – 2:15am, and that was when I heard the sound that woke me up.

It was a thump, and then a scrape. I sat up and looked out the window. It wasn't windy. There were plenty of odd sounds in the middle of the night in that old house, but I had a bad feeling. I got out of bed and slipped on my housecoat, feeling an urge to check on Emma that I hadn't felt since she was ten.

When I got close to her room I realized the sound was coming from within. I assumed she was probably just up, unable to sleep and moving about her room.

"Emma?" I called quietly, tapping on the door. When I didn't receive an answer, I opened it, blinking in the darkness until I saw that my daughter was climbing in through her bedroom window.

"Emma?!" I exclaimed, flipping on the light.

"Shit!" she hissed, and tumbled the rest of the way inside.

I couldn't even focus on the curse word. "What in the world are you doing?"

She looked up, rubbing her head and scowling. "You scared the shit out of me!"

This time I could focus on the curse word. "Emma Swan you better watch what you say to me or I'll smack that word right out of your mouth!"

She smirked, and even though I was all talk, smacking her was starting to sound good. "You sound like Elsa. You'd never hit me."

It made me even angrier that she was right. "Since when do you use that kind of language and since when are you sneaking out at night?!"

"Will you stop yelling? I was just hanging out with a couple of friends down the street, it's no big deal."

"It's a huge deal, Emma! Last I saw you, you were in your pajamas and telling me goodnight! What if something happened to you?! I wouldn't have known!"

"It wasn't like I went out alone! I was with friends. They showed up outside my window and asked me to come out. I didn't want to wake you."

My mouth hanged open as I looked from my daughter to the window and back again. "How did you even climb out?! Much less in?!"

"There's a tree."

I covered my face with my hands. My little Tree Nymph. I took several deep breaths and counted to ten. Twice. She's just acting out, I told myself. She's had a rough time, and now she's acting out. If you make it a big deal, it'll only make it worse.

"Emma, you can't do that, you can't sneak out. Baby, I need to know where you are."

She frowned and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets. "Sorry."

"I'm giving you a pass. Just this once! Do you understand me? You are not to leave this house in the middle of the night again and certainly not ever without my permission, is that clear?"

"Yeah," she mumbled.

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes and spoke more clearly. "Yes, ma'am."

I checked on her twice more that night, making sure she was tucked safely in bed.

"That child snuck out, swore at you, and you didn't punish her?" Elsa asked incredulously the next afternoon before Emma came home from school.

"She's never broken the rules before, ever!" I said in my own defense. "I thought that for a first-time offense, she deserved to be let off with a warning!"

"Gotta be careful, though," Fred said. "If she thinks she can get away with it…"

"She seemed really sorry," I said. "If anything like it happens again, I'll be stricter."

Right then Emma came home, tossing her backpack unceremoniously on the floor, like usual. She paused in the foyer, staring at us at as we sat around the kitchen table – staring at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said breezily. "I'm making that casserole you like tonight."

"Great," she said, smiling. "Save me some? I'm not gonna be here."

"And where will you be exactly?"

She shrugged. "The movies."

I got up from the table, ignoring the look Elsa was shooting me. "Honey, after last night I don't think…"

"What?" she interrupted. "You said it was okay."

"I said no such thing! I said I was letting it slide, just that once."

"And…that means I'm not grounded or anything. So I can go out. Tara's picking me up."

I bit my lower lip to prevent myself from forbidding her to go, trying to pick my battles. It was just a movie, after all, and I knew Tara. "Home by ten."

"The movie's not over till ten."

"10:30 then, and not a minute later!"

She rolled her eyes and that was really starting to bug me. "Fiiine…"

After she'd stomped upstairs I turned to find Elsa and Fred wearing identical bemused expressions.

"She has a curfew, if she doesn't obey it, she's grounded. Happy?"

The older couple shrugged and went about their business, while I just hoped that my baby did the right thing.

Emma was home ten minutes late, but blamed it on Tara's car not wanting to start when they left the theater, so I let it go. The next night she went to Tara's house, and was home seven minutes late, but said that she'd lost track of the time, so I told her she couldn't go out the next night, and she didn't.

I thought things were going okay. She wanted to go out every night, but didn't fight me when I told her that she couldn't. (Those nights I couldn't sleep, listening obsessively for sounds of her sneaking out, and checking on her at least twice.) She even brought up her math grade, so I rewarded her by allowing her to stay out until eleven for a monster-movie marathon in town.

It was past midnight and I sat in Fred's chair, equal parts worried sick and furious. I called Tara's mother, only to hear that Tara had been home for an hour and a half.

I was just about to wake Fred and go out in search for her when the door opened slowly and I watched as Emma tip-toed inside.

I sat in darkness and silence while she toed off her boots, nearly tripping over them and swearing under her breath. She then went into the kitchen and started poking around and I knew what she was doing. She was going to come up to my room where she probably thought I'd be and pretend that she'd been home for an hour, making herself something to eat.

"There's leftover meatloaf in the fridge," I said, leaning against the counter.

Emma jumped and made a "shh" sound, catching herself before she could curse.

"Emma Swan you are…" I checked the clock. "One hour and twelve minutes late."

"I'm sorry," she began. "Here's the thing…Tara's car…"

"Has been parked at her house since 10:30," I finished for her. "So don't bother. Where have you been?"

She fumbled for a moment for something to say. "I was just talking with some friends…outside the theater…and I lost track of the time!"

"It's after midnight!" I was trying not to yell, but finding it harder and harder not to. "I didn't know where you were! I was just about to come looking for you!" I walked farther into the kitchen, and frowned when Emma backed away from me as if I carried the plague. "What are you doing?"

"I said I was sorry," she mumbled. "I'm tired, can you yell at me tomorrow?"

"Why won't you look at me?" I stepped closer.

"I'm looking at you," she stepped away.

I reached out and grabbed her wrist, holding her still while I took her chin between my fingers and lifted her face to meet mine, and then I knew why she was turning her face away. So I couldn't smell what was on her breath. "You've been drinking!"

"I haven't…"

"Don't lie to me, Emma Swan, don't you dare lie to me! That's beer! You've been drinking beer!"

"I had one," she said, trying to pull away.

I shook my head. "No, your eyes are glassy, you've had more than one."

"Okay, so I had a couple. It's no big deal."

"Yeah, it is, you're sixteen, Emma. You're not old enough to drink!"

"I wasn't gonna get drunk or anything, I'm not stupid! And I'm not a baby!"

"But you are still a child, and not only have you broken the rules, you've broken the law and missy, you are so grounded."

Emma groaned, looking upward. "How long?"

"Two weeks."

"Two weeks? But Mom…"

"Don't want to hear it, now go to bed."

Emma got a glass of water and glared at me on her way out of the kitchen. Once she was gone, my anger crumbled leaving nothing but disappointment and worry.

I didn't know what to do.