Chapter Twenty Nine
"Emma?" Regina called, as she made her way down the hallway. She'd been searching the house for her to see if she was ready to settle in and watch a movie, but she was nowhere to be found on the first floor, nor was she in her bedroom. Regina made her way toward her own bedroom, and glanced inside just in case, and sure enough, there Emma was, sprawled across her bed on her stomach, petting Kitty Softpaws who lay on her back.
"There you are," Regina said, as she came to sit beside Emma on the bed.
For her part, Emma didn't take her eyes off of the cat in front of her. "Do you think Kitty Softpaws misses her babies? Do you think she'll hate me for giving them away?"
"Well, she certainly doesn't look like she hates you right now," Regina commented as the cat closed her eyes and purred.
"I'm being serious," Emma said, looking up at Regina with pleading eyes.
"I think," Regina said, reaching to brush the hair away from Emma's face. "That Kitty Softpaws trusts you enough to know you'd only do the right thing for her babies. She knows you wouldn't take them away if you weren't giving them to people who will love them and keep them safe."
Emma frowned and looked back at the cat, unconvinced. "But what if she wanted to be a mother? She loved them… she would never want to give them away. What mother could give their babies away?"
Regina swallowed hard. "Emma, there's something we need to talk about," she said. She knew Snow would be upset about this, but Emma really needed to understand how a mother could give away a baby she loved. And really, it affected herself and Henry more than it affected the Charmings, anyway. It should come from her.
"What? Is something wrong?" Emma asked, looking back at Regina with concern.
"No, not at all. But there's something we haven't told you yet, because you were too young to understand. Come here, sweetheart." Regina moved so sit back against the headboard and Emma scrambled up beside her, snuggling in close beside her.
"You're twelve now, and soon you'll be thirteen," Regina started, and Emma nodded beside her. "I don't know much about how your teenage years were the first time around, but I do know they weren't exactly easy for you."
"Nothing was ever easy for me," Emma acknowledged.
"I know. But things did get better. You know that, right?"
Emma nodded.
"And you know that, a long time ago, I was the Evil Queen and I did a lot of bad things, right?"
Emma scrunched up her nose in confusion. "Yeah, but, you know I don't care about that stuff, 'cause that's not who you are anymore, right?"
"Right," Regina agreed, "but there is something else I did that you do need to know about. You were too little to understand before, but I think it's time you knew why you're here."
"I'm here because a fairy made me live my whole life again."
"Not exactly. You weren't born here, Emma. Not in this realm."
Emma looked at her curiously. "Where was I born then?"
"In the Enchanted Forest. Your mother and father lived in a palace, and you were born there. You would have grown up as a princess, if it weren't for me."
"What did you do?" Emma asked, though her voice was a little more timid, as though she wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer to that question.
Regina let out a long sigh. "Back then, all I cared about was getting revenge, so I decided to cast a curse. And what this curse did, was create Storybrooke. I know it seems strange, since you and I both have magic here, but there isn't supposed to be magic in this realm, and there wasn't for a long time. And no one here could remember their old lives or who they really were, because I cursed them with false memories."
Emma's eyes widened. "Is that why I ended up in the system? My parents didn't remember me?"
Regina shook her head. "No, but it was still my fault. This curse was created by a man named Rumplestiltskin, and he did everything he could to make sure I would cast it one day. He could see the future, Emma, and knew it would happen. But what I didn't know at first was that there was also going to be a savior, who could break the curse. Do you remember asking me once what a savior is?"
Emma nodded, and whispered, "you said it was a job I would have when I was older."
"That's right. I learned that the child of Snow White and Prince Charming would be the only person who could break the curse. And they knew it too, and they had a plan. They put you in a magical tree so that the curse wouldn't sweep you up, and when you came out on the other side, you were in the woods, in Maine."
Emma drew in a breath. "They told me I was found by a little boy on the side of the road."
"Pinocchio," Regina acknowledged with a nod. "He didn't find you. He went through the tree with you. I don't know how you got separated, but somehow you did, and that's why you didn't know who you were. No one else knew either."
"So now what? I have to break the curse?"
Regina shook her head. "Oh, no. You already did that, don't worry. No one is cursed anymore. We all live here willingly and everyone remembers who they are."
Emma breathed a sigh of relief. "So then, why are you telling me now? Won't I just remember all of this later?"
"You will, but something else is going to happen first, and much, much sooner. Emma, you need to understand, the only reason you ever found Storybrooke in the first place, the only way you were able to come back and break the curse, is because Henry found you and brought you here. He knew who you were."
"He knew I was the savior?"
Regina nodded. "Yes, and you're also something else to him. Emma," Regina sighed, working up her nerve. "In a few months, you'll be seventeen. When you were seventeen, you went to prison."
"What?" Emma gasped.
"It wasn't your fault. You were set up. But when you were in prison, you discovered that you were pregnant. You gave the baby up for adoption, and I adopted him."
"Henry?" Emma whispered.
Regina nodded. "Mm-hmm."
"But… I would never give a kid up! I wouldn't… I know what it's like!"
"I know you do. But you wanted to give him his best chance, just like you gave those kittens their best chance, and Kitty Softpaws knows that. And your parents, honey, they were trying to do the same thing for you. They didn't know how it would all work out."
Emma nodded, slowly. "I always wondered why they would just toss me away. And then, when I was here and I knew them, I just didn't understand it. It didn't make any sense that they wanted me now, but not back then."
"They did. And, your mother and I have been debating on when to tell you all of this, and she doesn't know that I just did… she might be upset about that, but if she is, I'll deal with it when the time comes."
"That's a lot of things to learn," Emma said, snuggling in a little closer to Regina. "But I feel better knowing that you're here to help me. It's all gonna happen really, really soon. In my old memories, I turn thirteen in a couple weeks."
"I know, sweetheart." Regina wrapped her arms around Emma. "But everything's going to be okay. We'll cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie, and if you have any questions, about anything, you can ask me, alright?"
"Okay."
Thirteen hit Emma like a freight train.
At least, that's how it felt to her the next morning when she woke up to flooding memories of turning thirteen, of group homes and changing bodies and running away.
Emma groaned and rolled over in her bed, and tried to remind herself that she was safe in her room at Regina's house, and not sleeping on the street that night, wondering where her next meal would come from.
Even so, as grateful as she was that she had not one, but two beds, and two homes, she quickly realized the changing bodies thing was still a reality, and the pajamas she'd gone to bed in last night were now just a little too snug. Groaning again, she rolled herself out of bed and made her way over to her closet, wondering what would even still fit.
Emma crossed her arms as she caught a glimpse of herself in a now too-tight tank top, as vivid memories of foster fathers who leered at her or got a little too touchy-feely came back to her. "They're not here," she whispered to herself, trying to coax herself back to the present moment and the task at hand.
After quickly rifling through her closet, she grabbed a pair of jeans that had been a little too big for her last month, and her red hoodie from the day before. In her memories, she was already wearing a bra by now, and her face flushed as she realized she was going to have to ask someone to take her out to get one.
Emma tapped her fingers nervously against her thigh, wondering who she could ask. Her mother seemed like the logical choice, though her mother also seemed like the type to take pictures and cry about how her baby was growing up too fast. Regina was out too, though Emma couldn't quite put a finger on exactly why she suddenly felt shy about asking her, but either way, she was out.
There weren't many other people she knew. She supposed she could ask Lily and Mal, but then again, she hadn't yet gotten her memories of Lily back and she was still a little concerned about what they might be. And either way, she didn't have either of their phone numbers.
Now that she thought about it, there was only one number she knew she did have in her phone.
"Ruby," she said out loud as she crossed the room to her night stand and pulled her phone out of the drawer. She didn't use it much, as she didn't find she had much need for it, but now she was so grateful that Henry had given it to her.
She paused for a moment, remembering what Regina had told her about Henry the night before, but decided not to dwell on it. She hadn't fully processed it yet, and right now, it didn't seem like the most pressing issue.
Hey Ruby, she typed quickly, can I ask you a favour?
It only took Ruby a few moments to write back and ask what was up.
Here's the thing: i turned 13 and i need some help with something. I don't wanna ask my mom. I need to get a bra. It's urgent.
Emma bit her lip as she sent send, hoping that Ruby wasn't howling with laughter reading her pathetic plea for help. To her relief, Ruby texted back again quickly, promising to come pick her up and taking her shopping after lunch, if she could survive that long.
Emma agreed, and breathed a sigh. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. After all, it wasn't like she had no idea what she was doing. She vaguely remembered what to do with a bra, though really, she only had a few days worth of memories about them. Either way, shopping with Ruby would be a lot less awkward than shopping with a foster mother she'd just met was.
Emma also guessed it would be good to have a day out with Ruby, since the new memories that she gained also left her with a few burning questions, and she suspected Ruby was just the one to ask…
