Guest: I'm not doing the Snowing baby plot like in the show.

Chapter 10

"Hey Mom!" Henry said brightly the next morning, his arms ladeled with what appeared to be a large stack of board games and DVDs.

"Hey, kid." Emma responded from her spot on the couch. That had been a compromise; Mary Margaret had wanted her to stay in bed and Emma had flat out refused, quipping absently that she'd suffered way worse injuries and had been sent back to school fairly soon after by various foster parents. That had caused a pained look to briefly cross Mary Margaret's face, which confused Emma. Why did she look so...guilty? It wasn't like it was her fault Emma's childhood sucked.

"I thought we could hang out. Must be pretty boring sitting here all day." Henry said as he emptied the contents of his arms onto the carpet.

"You have no idea." Emma said dryly. She shot a look at Mary Margaret over her shoulder. "Now that Henry's here you really don't have to stay here out of pity. Its Saturday. Go out and have some fun. As long as its not with David."

A pained look seemed to cross Mary Margaret's face as she joined them. "I'm fine." She insisted. "Besides, I love board games."

Emma shrugged. "Suit yourself." She eyed one of the boxes, a particular one catching her eye. "Sorry?" Emma eyed one of the boxes. "Aww yeah, I love that game!" She perused the rest of the stack. "Wow. Checkers, Monopoly, even Scrabble? And is that Clue? What'd you do, rob a toy store?"

"No." Henry said as he helped himself to the plate of cookies Mary Margaret had set on the counter. "I brought them from home."

"Thanks." Her heart warmed at the thought of spending the day playing board games with Henry and Mary Margaret. There was something so cozy about it, something that she never knew she'd wanted.

Henry began to divvy up the game pieces. "Ok, who wants what color?"

"Green!" Emma said as she waved her hand. "What?" She said as she caught the amused look on their faces. "Its my lucky color. Not that I need luck to win." She added, almost as an afterthought. "I don't know about you, but I'm weirdly good at this game."

"Of course you are." Mary Margaret said, shuffling the cards. "Too bad there's only three of us. It'd be better with four people. Whatever." She shrugged as she set aside the red pieces. "Who's going first?" Mary Margaret had to bite her tongue to keep herself from saying that it would be better if David was there.

"Mom can." Henry gestured around their circle. "Then we can go clockwise."

"Sure." Emma agreed as she reached out to draw a card. And then something occured to her. "Since when do you call me Mom?" She frowned.

"Oh, uhh." Henry stammered. He and Mary Margaret exchanged a quick, nervous glance that Emma would've missed had she hadn't looked up after her turn. "Sorry."

"Its fine." Emma said, feeling awkward. Clearly her son was becoming more and more attached, which would only make things harder when she left as soon as she was recovered. She looked expectantly at Mary Margaret. "Your turn."

Soon enough, Henry and Mary Margaret found that Emma was in fact weirdly good at Sorry, a game that was based on pure chance, where strategies could only get you so far.

"Told ya." Emma said happily as she plunked her last piece down. "And I win."

"Wow. That was impressive." Mary Margaret commented.

"Eh." Emma said. "You should see me at Scrabble."

Three games later, they found out that she hadn't been kidding. Even Mary Margaret the teacher couldn't beat Emma when it came to the amount of creative words she could come up with.

"So what next?" Henry asked. His face was covered with cookie crumbs and he bounced up and down slightly on the carpet; clearly the sugar was kicking in.

Emma stifled a yawn, having just knocked back a couple of painkillers. "I don't know, kid." She looked at the clock. "Its almost five. Shouldn't you be going home now? Before your Mom finds out you were here all day?"

"Oh, she's ok with it."

"Uh-huh." Emma said, obviously unconvinced. "I'm sure she is."

"She is." Henry insisted. "Really."

"The Regina I know will have my head if you're even a minute late."

"Well maybe you don't know her as well as you think you do." He said cryptically.

Emma looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." Henry said quickly as Emma continued to state suspiciously at him.

"I think Emma's right." Mary Margaret cut in. "She needs her rest anyway." She said as Emma yawned once more. "I'll walk you out."

"Ok." Henry said. "Can I at least take some cookies back?"

"Sure." They headed towards the kitchen as Emma began to clean up the scattered remnants of their impromptu game day. As she folded up the game board, she thought she heard them whispering feverently.

"Bye. Emma." Henry said as he hugged her goodbye. Was it her imagination or did the "Emma" part sound a little forced?

"Bye." She said as she closed the door after him. "Well, that was fun." She leaned against the door. "I don't remember having so much fun with board games before. They were usually something foster parents did to get us to bond. Never worked."

"Yeah." Mary Margaret agreed. "Still think it's in Henry's best interest to leave? He seemed pretty happy today."

"Yeah, well." Emma shrugged. "That doesn't mean its best for him if I stay."

"But maybe it is?"

"Or maybe its not. Look, I talked to Archie before...well you know. And while he agrees that while Henry's been happier since I came, he's also been acting out. Breaking rules, sneaking out. All because of me."

"I guess." Mary Margaret said uncertainly.

"And its not like I won't be able to see him. Just not...everyday."

"But Emma..."

"I just want to do what's best for him. And I'm clearly not it." Emma started up the stairs. "I've made up my mind. I'm leaving as soon as I can."

Today had been a success, right? Henry thought as he walked home. Emma had seemed happy, and best of all, completely distracted.

He'd practically messed up so many times. First calling her Mom and then forgetting about how Regina used to be like. But whatever. All he had to do was get her to see how happy they were together to keep her from leaving.

If she did, no one could stop her, for no one could leave Storybrooke. And there was no telling when her memories would return. They would lose her indefinitely.

Next up in his grand plan to get Emma to stay was to convince her of the curse. He knew that this would not be an easy task, seeing as she only believed the first time because he'd eaten the turnover. Except that of course no one would allow him to put his life on the line just to get Emma to believe.

So he decided to do the next best thing: force her to read the storybook cover to cover and admit that it was the truth.

Bright and early the next morning, he was knocking on the door to Mary Margaret's apartment. It felt a little strange to have to knock, as he'd been given a key a while ago. But as far as Emma knew, he didn't have a key, so it was back to knocking.

"Hey." Emma said as she greeted him, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand. "What're you doing here so early, kid?"

"I thought we could hang out again."

"And you're sure your mom is ok with this?"

"Yep!" Henry answered as he pushed past her into the apartment.

Emma frowned. Something seemed off; her instincts told her that he wasn't lying, but the Regina she knew would never be ok with her son spending so much time with Emma. She pushed the thoughts out of her mind and joined Henry on the couch. "So what do you wanna do? I'm kinda tired of board games. Wanna go upstairs and look through my DVDs? There might be something you'd like."

"Or…" Henry started rifling through his backpack. "We could read this."

Emma sighed inwardly as he pulled out his book of fairytales. Not this again. "Oh. Um."

"Come on." He urged. "You've never finished it."

"Yeah, but…" She stopped, seeing the desperate look on his face. "Ok."

He flipped it open to a page that she was super familiar with by now: Snow White and Prince Charming standing on the Troll Bridge.

"I think I've seen this before." Emma attempted to turn to a different page, but he slapped his hand down.

"Just look at the page." He said. "Who do they remind you of?"

"That's easy." She smirked. "Mary Margaret and David."

His eyes widened. "Really?"

"Yeah. You've only reminded me of this like a thousand times. They're my long lost parents who sent me through a magical wardrobe to save me from a curse. A curse that your mother, the Evil Queen, placed on this town."

"Right." He said. "But now there's more." Henry flipped to another page in the book, stopping on an image of a dark haired man with a smirk. "Do you recognize him?"

Emma stared at the image. It was just a hand drawn picture, but it was super detailed. She could feel herself attracted to the man already. She blinked; what was wrong with her? It was just a picture. "Um, if I saw him around town I think I'd remember him. Who's he?"

"That's Captain Hook."

"Really? Are you sure?" She stared at the man and struggled to reconcile the image of the iconic Captain Hook she held in her mind to the attractive one in the book.

"Yeah. So do you recognize him?"

"No. I don't think so."

"Are you sure?" He pressed. "Look carefully. Does he seem familiar at all?"

"Henry…"

"Just look."

She did, really did to try and see if she recognized him, but as far as she knew he was just a pirate. Since when had she known any of those? She'd met some pretty weird people over the years, but no guyliner wearing, all leather clad, admittedly sexy pirate.

"So? Anything?"

Alright, enough was enough. Emma snapped the book closed. "What's this about, Henry?"

"I-it's part of operation cobra."

"No it's not." She replied. "And you know it. Tell me the truth."

Henry stared at the ground. Should he tell her? His grandparents and Hook had urged him not to, as it would seem like the delusional ramblings of a kid. But she had to know the truth.

"Henry?" She raised an eyebrow. "C'mon."

Fine. If she wanted the truth, it was what she was going to get. "He's your husband." Henry blurted.

Emma was blindsided. "...Who?"

"Hook." He opened the page and pointed at the picture of the pirate. "Him. He's your husband."

Oh no. His delusions were worse than she thought. "What are you talking about, Henry? You think I'm married to a fairy tale character?" With every word her voice rose in pitch, laced with disbelief. "What are you talking about? I think I'd remember being married."

"That's just it! You don't!" He argued. "When you were shot you lost all your memories of the past several years. You only think that the last thing that happened was you getting ready to leave but that's not true."

Emma gaped at him, opening and closing her mouth like a fish. She was at a complete loss for words.

Henry continued. "You forgot all about breaking the curse, and how you and your mother got transported to the Enchanted Forest where you met Hook, whose real name is Killian by the way, and then you came back and then there was this epic battle against Regina and her mother Cora who died. And later I got kidnapped and taken to Neverland and you, your parents, Regina, Hook, and Gold went to save me and then you did and we came back and later you and Hook got married." He finished.

"Let me get this straight. You think all of this actually happened and that I just...forgot all of it?"

"Not think." He said emphatically. "It actually happened."

"Henry…"

"Don't give me that look. Use your superpower to see if I'm lying." When she didn't reply, he smiled triumphantly. "See, you know I'm not lying. I know it's a little scary, not remembering, but now that we know we can go find Hook and…" He stood up, pulling on her arm. "Come on!"

"No. Wait." She pulled her arm away. How was she going to say this without hurting his feelings?

"Come on. Hook misses you and we should really go find him."

"Henry. Listen to me." She began. "You clearly have a very wild sense of imagination, which will come in very useful for English in the future. But you can't honestly believe that this is true."

"But...it is."

"No it's not. And you know it. You can't go on believing in this stuff. Fairy tale characters are just that. They're characters. In stories. They're not real."

"Yes they are. And you have a da…"

"Enough." She interrupted. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts, but it's not real."

At the sound of her serious tone, he seemed to deflate. "Ok." He started heading up the stairs. "I'm gonna go look for a DVD."

This had been his last hope. A real long shot, but he'd been hoping that true love would prevail. And now that it hadn't...what was he to do?

Emma stood in front of him, her belongings strewn about the living room, having been interrupted in the middle of packing. "Henry, what are you doing?" She eyed her son, her gripped Regina's apple turnover in both hands. They were arguing over a dessert, for God's sake, and it was annoying her to no end.

"I'm sorry it had to come to this." A note of sadness crept into his voice. "You may not believe in the curse or in me, but I believe in you." He took a big bite out of the turnover, his eyes never leaving hers.

"You see?" She shook her head. "You want to have some ice cream and then we can go back to talking about…" She never finished her sentence, for Henry collapsed to the ground.

"Henry?!" She shouted, horror growing inside. This could not be happening. No, no, rushed over to him, her heart pounding with dread. Oh God. He wasn't breathing. He couldn't be dead...could he? All because of the turnover. "Henry!"

Emma jolted awake, her body bathed with sweat as she gazed wildly around the dark, familiar room, half expecting to find Henry lying unconscious on the floor.

It took a second for her to realize that that had just been a dream.

But it had felt so real. She couldn't remember the last time a dream had been so real. She could remember the irritation quickly followed by mounting fear and a crushing feeling of horror.

To be completely honest, it had felt like something that had already happened. But that was crazy!

It had to be an omen, then. A message from some higher power that if she didn't leave she'd be responsible for Henry's destruction. Well, message received. A little redundant, since she was already planning to leave, but effective nonetheless.

Author's note: Oh no, Emma doesn't believe Henry! Guess she's actually gonna leave...