Hey all. Apologies for the delay. The first week back at work for the new school year was intense! Up dates might come a little slower than previously, but this story is mostly finished. I just like to edit a lot!
Less action from here on out, but more inner struggle for out ladies. Hopefully leading to a satisfying end to this tale. Enjoy!
Chapter One: Surface Tension
As the days passed, Emma Swan managed to stay awake for longer periods and soon realised that she was never left alone – not even while asleep. Mostly, it was Henry and Regina beside her bed keeping her company when she woke, providing comfort and preventing her from making a break for it. She felt claustrophobic with so many machines surrounding her and hospital staff hovering and poking.
Sometimes, she woke before opening her eyes and lay listening to snippets of conversation pertaining to the case against Leo White, Cora Mills and their network of like-minded miscreants. Nobody wanted to tell her any information on the people who'd put her in the hospital. But while she appreciated everyone's need to protect her, Emma felt like she would be easier in herself if she knew what was going on outside of her clinical box.
This morning, rather than the soothing presence of her girlfriend, Mary Margret fluttered around the room, repositioning get-well cards, fiddling with the window blinds and throwing out old, wilting flowers from the various bouquets littering the room. Her behaviour struck Emma as unusual – a nervous, restlessness that betrayed the woman's inner turmoil. The bounty-hunter's thoughts shifted back to earlier in the week when Regina had reopened the discussion about her lineage.
After giving into an obscene amount of pouting, Regina Mills sat on her girlfriend's bed and enjoyed a rare moment for just the two of them. Henry was at school, she'd done everything she needed to do for work and no one else needed her to discuss the trial. Much as she probably should have used this time to catch up on some much-needed sleep, she knew that rest wouldn't come easy, not when she had so much on her mind. Besides, she had a bee in her bonnet and wanted to talk while they were alone.
"So, she's still here?" Emma said, asking for confirmation on the whereabouts of Cora Mills.
Regina sighed. "Mm-hm. As soon as she realised that a full recovery meant she was going into custody, she suffered a 'relapse'."
"And they bought that?" the blonde asked incredulously.
Dark eyes rolled dramatically. "As long as the money is pouring in from her insurance, I doubt the hospital cares much." Regina fell silent for a moment and used the time to smooth out the bed sheet around Emma's torso. For a long time, she was lost in thought and didn't realise that she was being watched. As she caught her girlfriend's gaze, she blushed.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Emma asked as a fond smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"Well, speaking of parents…"
The blonde's jovial expression fell instantly. She seemed to shrink into the bd and her gaze drifted away, looking at anything but the patient understanding behind brown eyes. "This again?" she grumbled. Ever since she'd overreacted about her reading difficulties and almost broken any hope of a relationship with this amazing woman, she'd been careful not to say anything she couldn't take back, but this subject was really testing her self-control. Too many uncomfortable thoughts surged to the surface when she considered the possibility of living, breathing parents, and a whole host of other more desperate thoughts followed when she considered the possibility of those titles belonging to David and Mary Margret Blanchard. "Can't we just leave it all where it is? What's the point in opening that can of worms?"
"Emma," Regina soothed, her voice lilting in the way that it did when she was persuading her son that there were no monsters under his bed. "I know you're afraid to know the answer to this question. I would be, in your place. But I know if our positions were reversed, you would be telling me the same thing – you all have a right to know the truth. Whether they are your biological parents or not, it doesn't change the fact that they care about you."
Green eyes hid behind closed lids for several minutes. There was a war being waged inside Emma and neither side appeared to be winning. Above the beating of Emma's heart, two fears met head-to-head, shouting their reasons for ignoring this issue.
What if she found out that they weren't her biological parents? It would kill that small kernel of hope that sat in the furthest recess of her heart. It would reopen the question that had plagued the orphan her entire life; who was she and why hadn't she been good enough? Right now, she could pretend that she was part of this tragic story, where her parents had fought to stay together and had been devastated when Emma was stolen from them.
But then, what if they were her parents? These people who had taken her in and cared for her at a time in her life when she'd been at her most difficult, who had put up with so much and kept trying regardless, who she'd rejected and hurt when she ran away and left them wondering. These people who'd suffered the loss of their baby daughter once had been forced to endure that pain all over again because of Emma's stupid decision. How was she supposed to deal with that knowledge?
Before she could stop them, tears began to leak out from beneath her closed lids. She felt Regina's hand squeezing hers and squeezed back as sobs began to wrack her body.
All of these thoughts ran pell-mell through Emma's mind as she watched Mary Margret's nervous behaviour. Had Regina mentioned the possible connection? Had she decided to push Emma harder out of her internal dilemma? It didn't seem likely; Regina was more likely to tell Emma directly if she planned to take matters into her own hands. The FBI on the other hand could absolutely decide to go against her wishes and behind her back to suit their own agenda. Finding the Blanchard's missing child and closing another cold-case was their priority after all.
Emma sighed and gritted her teeth as her brain convinced her that this was what had happened. "MM, I don't think anything else needs adjusting," she began irritably. "If you don't want to be here…" she added, falling back on that old habit of pushing people away.
Mary Margret's gaze finally zeroed in on the blonde and her expression crumbled into sombre waters. She wiped her hands rapidly against her trousers and scrambled into the chair beside the bed. "Of course, I want to be here, Emma. If you only knew…" She faltered and appeared to battle with herself.
"They told you," Emma interrupted before the older woman could find her words. More than ever, she was convinced that she was being cornered into a decision that was going to turn her life upside down. Panic rose in her, screaming through her veins. Before cooler thoughts could prevail, she was pushing herself off the mattress and pulling at tubes, heedless of the other woman's pleas for her to calm down.
"Emma… Emma, stop!" Mary Margret's voice echoed around the room as her hands found purchase on flighty shoulders and held them back. "For God's sake, calm down before you hurt yourself."
Frozen in place by pain and indecision, Emma felt tears of frustration prick at her eyes. "I know what you're going to say," she insisted stubbornly, brokenly.
"You know what I'm going to say?" Mary Margret parroted, her voice gaining volume again and sounding exasperated. "Like you knew that David and I were going to kick you out, so you ran away? Like you knew that all of your teachers thought you were a lost cause, so you stopped trying? How do you know what I'm going to say when I don't even know what we're talking about?" She paused and breathed hard for the amount of time it took for Emma to lie back down. After a cursory look to check that nothing had been too badly disturbed by the blonde's antics, she breathed a sigh of relief. "Who are they and why would they feel the need to tell me things that obviously make you uncomfortable?"
Emma's expression morphed from stubborn to panic-frozen again in the blink of an eye. "It's nothing," she finally muttered, her gaze sweeping everything except Mary Margret's face.
A huff of her growing exasperation passed the older woman's lips. "I know life hasn't been fair to you, Emma, and people have rarely surprised you, but at some point, you're going to have to start trusting people."
"I trust Regina and Ragnar," Emma argued and instantly regretted it.
"Oh," Mary Margret replied as she read between the lines. "I see." She breathed tearily, blinked several times and visibly struggled to control her need to openly cry.
Say something. Anything, the blonde's inner voice begged her, but her tight throat refused to let the words pass.
The greyed woman seemed to age another decade as the silence stretched on. Eventually, she stood and shuffled towards the door. At the threshold, she paused and turned back. "I'm sorry. We tried, Emma. We really did."
Emma Swan lay, unable to will her body to move or her mouth to speak; in the face of such conflict, she was a deer in the headlights – frozen as she'd learned to do so early in life. She watched the woman – her mother? – leave and felt self-loathing rise up to eat at her insides. Before her muscles could relax and the tears could break through however, the door opened again and Mary Margret hovered just inside the entrance, determination and uncertainty warring on her face.
"David thinks we should let everything lie in the past and just focus on the future," she began in a rush. A piece of paper flapped in her hand and she looked at it like it held something precious. "But I can't move forward without letting you know." Her wistful façade faltered slightly as her memories plunged her into some awful moment, but she quickly recovered. "This came too late. We didn't want to get your hopes up, so we waited until everything was approved, but you were already gone when it arrived." She shuffled over to the bed and slid the paper onto the side table. "I just think you should know that you're not alone. You're wanted, Emma. You're loved, even if you can't see it."
With those final words, Mary Margret left again and this time didn't return. Emma finally felt her body surrender to the absence of the perceived threat and held the covers tightly as she cried. When curiosity got the best of her and her finger tips reached to touch the edges of the paper, almost an hour had passed. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she ached all over from the effort of holding back the loud, clawing anguish that was ripping her apart from the inside. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn't let it yet. Not before she'd seen. Not before she knew.
The paper crackled as she closed her hand around it and brought it closer. Like she knew that she was going to find yet another thing that would knock her for six, she teased open the two ends and held her breath…
Regina pulled into the hospital carpark and screeched to a stop in a bay. If she could see her, Emma would scowl adorably at her for treating the classic beetle with such contempt, but Emma was still bed-ridden for the moment. Thanks in no small part to Regina's mother.
Papers had arrived on her lawyer's desk early that morning. Papers from her mother. Papers suing her for causing Cora Mills unnecessary suffering during difficult times. She claimed that Regina had disappeared when Cora was at her most fragile – when she was still grieving over the loss of her husband, had been left trying to untangle a web of finances and was then left with the added worry of her missing daughter.
The woman was setting up her narrative, creating a picture of a distraught widow and mother, a woman who couldn't possibly be in her right mind and therefore, could not be held accountable for whatever extreme lengths she'd gone to in the aftermath. That she had not understood what she was doing when she'd blackmailed her daughter to return home and threatened the people Regina loved in order to marry the young woman off to a wealthy associate.
The documents from Cora's lawyers had infuriated Regina to the point that she almost threw them into the open fire in Emma's living room. Her own attorney and prosecutor, Mr Blaine, had turned a pale shade of green at her sudden surge towards the flames but Katherine calmly moved in front of her and teased the documents from her grip before returning to the table.
"She can claim temporary insanity as much as she likes but we have everything we need to refute her," the blonde lawyer explained in a cool, matter-of-fact manner. "The pieces you put together after your father's death to implicate foul-play match with the FBI's investigations and evidence of corrupt doctors. She can hardly say she was mourning when she orchestrated the whole thing. We have witnesses who can attest to her pressuring you to marry Leo White and evidence to link them to Daniel's death. Sweetie," she paused and waited for Regina's full attention. "This trial is going to take its toll on everyone, but you most of all. Don't give her what she wants – if you feel like it's all getting too much, take a break, go and hit something, scream into a pillow, cry on your girlfriend or eat a ridiculous amount of chocolate. Just don't let it make you stupid." Kathryn reached into her briefcase and pulled out a manilla folder. "Here, take this and get Emma to sign it. Come back when you're ready."
Regina nodded soberly and left the team to focus on their job – to prepare for war. It was getting to her; she could feel the tension building up inside at the thought of her mother worming her way out of yet another awful scheme. The charges against Cora Mills were piling up, dragging up exiled thoughts and memories from Regina's mind and bringing them to the fore. She couldn't breathe, couldn't stop the horrors of the past from rising, couldn't completely banish the panic that sat in her stomach.
Her heels echoed off the tiles as she walked the halls of the hospital. The route was so familiar now that she arrived at her destination in no time at all. Expecting to cross over with Mary Margret's time slot, she peeked through the small window first, but found only Emma inside. With a click and a whoosh of brush fibres against laminate tiles, the door gave way to Regina's will and allowed her past. Her sharp gaze zeroed in on Emma as she waited for the door to close behind her. She didn't move until the latch slid home again and green eyes finally lifted.
"Emma," the brunette gasped as tears dripped over pale features and drew her closer. "What happened?" When no answer came and her girlfriend just continued to cry, Regina found room on the bed beside the blonde and pulled her close.
It was becoming a source of bitter-sweet comfort to be holding Emma like this when the bounty-hunter could no longer hold her emotions in. By the blonde's own admission, she never cried if she could help it. She might run until her legs gave out, pummel her punch bag into submission or simply block out the world around her as she shoved everything deep down inside, but rarely did she cry and if she did, she always did so alone. The fact that she trusted Regina enough to show her vulnerable underbelly was enough to bring a tear of joy to dark eyes, but always with the knowledge that the woman was hurting.
Spying a crumpled piece of paper in Emma's hand, Regina's curiosity piqued. The younger woman continued to hiccough through the last of her tears and didn't try to stop the brunette when the documents were teased from her grasp.
Brown eyes moved rapidly over the adoption request which was dated a decade earlier. "Oh, Emma," Regina uttered quietly, with a depth of compassion and understanding that brought fresh tears to both their eyes. She held the blonde close for several minutes more before setting the paper aside and helping her girlfriend to sit up a little better. "Did Mary Margret give you this today?" she asked softly. At a small nod, she added, "She didn't want to stay to talk about it?"
"I didn't give her much of a choice," Emma admitted hoarsely. "I thought someone'd told her about me and her baby – the one she lost – so I tried to get away. She got me to stay and tried to ask me about why I was running…" Her voice cracked and she sucked in several breaths.
Regina held her thoughts for a moment as the other woman tried not to break down again. "What did you say?" she asked eventually.
Emma sniffed and wiped at her eyes with her sleeves. "Nothing nice. I may as well have slapped her." She swallowed with difficulty and pulled at a thread on the sheet. "She gave me that paper and told me that they tried their best. And that I was wanted. I was loved…" The tears came again and there was no stopping them. Years of pent-up anguish from every failed relationship surged through her.
Holding the blonde closer, Regina let her cry. She managed to extract herself from the bed just before her girlfriend succumbed to sleep and paced the room for a while before wandering to the window to stare out in thought. Everything felt like such a mess. In her darkest moments, she was annoyed at Emma for being so stubborn, for rejecting parents who wanted her, who might be the two people in all the world who she'd been wondering about her entire life. Yet, here Emma was, refusing to look at the possibility of finding out the truth. It irked her. When her own mother was such a vindictive, compassionless monster, she envied the attention Mary Margret tried to lavish on her girlfriend, and no matter how much she hated herself for the selfish thoughts, she couldn't stop them from returning.
Regina wondered how long it would be before she said something that might as well be a slap in the face. Sleep hadn't come easy to her lately, not since the night she and Emma had first made love. The only night she and Emma had made love. Swimming in the back of her mind, constantly beneath her thoughts, there was guilt for leaving the safehouse; fear of being held captive; hatred and longing toward her mother; more hatred and fear, mixed with a vat of disgust towards Leo White; guilt and worry for her son and Emma; and the whole thing sprinkled with bitterness and resentment – towards Emma, towards Henry even, but at the world in general. But since she couldn't punish the entire world or take her mixed up emotions out on her son, Emma was a convenient target and she knew it with every sour tasting word that she swallowed when they spoke.
A heavy sigh fell from her lips and she forced the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. She was tired of being strong and tired of carrying the world on her shoulders, and she knew that Emma was dealing with many of the very same issues, but she missed the dynamic they had before. As fiercely independent as she was and as much as she'd resisted the idea at first, she'd secretly enjoyed being the damsel in distress once she realised that Emma was her saviour. Knowing that they both had a serious lack of nurturing influences in their past, it was a growing worry that their combined neediness would consume any relationship they might try to have, but that was a problem for the future. There were more pressing concerns to focus on at present.
"Hey," James greeted with a nervous wave as he stepped into Emma's hospital room the next day.
His mom had hovered around the kitchen that morning, picking up her keys and coat and then putting them down again for almost half an hour as she deliberated over whether to visit Emma today, and in the end, he'd had to take pity on her and told her he'd go in her stead. He knew she'd feel guilty if she didn't visit, but since she'd spent most of the night crying and agonising over how she'd left things, he thought she deserved a break.
However, as the door closed behind him and he took in the abrupt silence between the two women already present, he wished he'd stayed at home. "Erm," he began and reached with one hand to rub the back of his neck. "I didn't mean to interrupt." His other hand thumbed in the direction of the door. "I can go…"
"No!" Regina insisted from the far side of the bed. She stood up, shot a significant look at her partner and kissed her on the forehead before making her way to the door. "I'm glad you're here," she told the shy, young man. "Emma's being her usual stubborn self and I think she'd be relieved to be rid of me for a few hours."
"Not true," the blonde grumbled sullenly.
A gentle sigh escaped the brunette's painted lips. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since she'd walked in on her girlfriend in distress and already her irritated voice was back. She needed air. "I think there are things the two of you should catch up on without an audience and in any case, I really should get to my meeting." She finished buttoning her coat and turned back to her girlfriend. "Be good," she threatened with a playful glare, "and don't torture him too much. I'll see you later."
"Bye," Emma replied, her voice sounding small and lost. Once the door closed and left her alone with her ex-foster brother, she felt her walls go up. "So, you here to berate me about being mean to your mom?"
James tried to summon a wry smile. "Would it work?"
The blonde chuckled despite herself and shrugged. "Probably not." A silence settled over them and she felt herself being thrust back into memories of him as an awkward pre-teen. His quiet nature had irritated her back then; she was used to noise – crying, whining, screaming, shouting; everything but the patient tick of a clock in the background while she waited to see why he was standing in her room. "Did you know…? About the adoption?"
He nodded. "They asked me how I felt about having you as a permanent part of our family."
"And you had enough sense to tell them they were crazy, right?" she joked, though her laugh sounded hollow. She watched the timid look on his face and knew he hadn't said anything like that. "You wanted me to be your sister? Permanently?"
"Sure," he answered. "Why not?"
"Er, 'cause I got in trouble all the time, made your parents argue and was never nice to you?" she responded incredulously.
"They argued like that before you got there and you were nice to me sometimes," he reasoned.
"When?" She noticed that he conveniently didn't mention the fact that she got into trouble a lot. It was a hard one to dispute no matter how you looked at it.
"You remember: you taught me how to make the best hot chocolate – with whipped cream and cinnamon, how to mix the best leftovers, how to fold an empty chips packet into a triangle so it drops to the bottom of the trash and doesn't crinkle." He grinned at the flush of embarrassment that crept into her cheeks. "Yeah, most of it was food related, but it was nice. I liked having a big sister to teach me those things."
"Seriously?" she asked, her tone sounding confused but hopeful.
Sitting straighter and exuding more confidence now, James nodded. "Yeah, seriously. I was worried about how things would work out, but I wanted you to stay. I know you didn't like school much, but I liked it when you turned up; the bullies in my class were scared of you, so they left me alone when you were around."
Emma felt worse than ever about running away but listening to James did lift a small weight from her shoulders too. Regina had been bugging her all morning about doing the DNA test to find out one way or another if she was the Blanchards' long-lost daughter. Emma kept resisting but she felt her conviction waning. But even if she conceded to her girlfriend's suggestion that she would torture herself endlessly if she didn't find out the truth, she didn't know how she would begin to talk to Mary Margret or David about getting their consent to do the test. As she looked at their son though, an idea formed in her mind.
Come on, Emma. This is the easy work-around you've been looking for. Her confrontational tone softened a little as she began to test the waters. "Did your parents ever talk to you about them having other kids?"
His gaze drifted to memories from childhood. "They took in other foster kids. Mostly before you."
"No," she responded and paused to think about her phrasing. "I mean biological children."
James' expression faltered slightly but he recovered quickly. "You mean my sister, Eva?"
A jolt of something not entirely pleasant skittered down Emma's spine. "Eva? That was her name; the baby that went missing?"
"Yeah," he answered with confusion. His brows knitted together as he shrank back in his seat again. "How do you know about her? Mom and Dad hardly ever talk about her."
Emma swallowed and repositioned herself so she was leaning forward a little more. It pulled at the stitches in her side but she ignored the sharp pain. She needed the young man to take her seriously; there was no way she was going to have this talk twice, not when her head already pounded at the effort to get the words out. "You remember that day you saw me at the Bureau? The Feds told me about your sister when they were explaining how everything linked back to Cora and Leo." He nodded and she cleared her throat. Ok, here goes. "Funny thing though…"
"Hmm?" he responded distantly. The one thing that had hung over his family since before his birth was the awful disappearance of his parents' first child. No matter how much they loved him, Eva's absence had torn a hole in their lives. A hole they had tried to heal when they brought wayward children into their home. Emma hadn't been the first foster sibling he'd had, but she was the only one they'd considered keeping.
Emma watched the faraway look bloom in James' eyes and cleared her throat to draw his attention back to her. "Your sister went missing around the same time some couple said they found me on the side of the road…" she told him in one short breath and then paused, hoping he'd fill in the blanks. Please don't make me spell it out! He looked at her blankly, so she pressed on."I only have the vague story they told social services when they decided after three years that they didn't want me anymore, but where they said they found me as a baby was only ten miles from the hospital where your sister was born…" Come on, Jamie. Take the hint. Don't leave me hanging, buddy. To her relief, the young man's eyes suddenly widened.
"You think…?" He jerked all the way back in his chair and smacked a hand over his mouth. "Oh my God," he whispered in shock, his blue eyes flicking all over her. "Really?"
Emma absorbed the undeniable hero worship on his face and cringed internally. This is why I didn't want to go through with this. It's gonna crush him when it turns out I'm just a kid someone threw away. A nobody like I've always been. "I don't know," she answered, her serious expression trying to caution him. "It's probably just a ridiculous coincidence but…"
"You want to find out if you could be Eva?" he asked, his mouth hanging open with the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners.
"I'm not Eva," she answered bluntly, with a force that doused the excitement behind his eyes. Emma closed her own eyes for a moment and gathered the anger that had filled her veins so suddenly. Pull it together, Em. Pull it together. Calmly, she started again, "Whatever this turns out to be. Whether I'm…"
Her mind threw images of Cora Mills carrying a baby from the hospital away from its parents. She'd thought about what might have happened many times since the FBI had told her of the Blanchards' baby and her brain suggested the connection. As evil as Cora was, could she really have abandoned a child like that? Probably. But would she be stupid enough to leave something like that to chance? The woman was power mad. She would have had a plan. A buyer maybe, for the child she would steal.
Emma cleared her throat again and wiped at a rebellious tear. "If it turns out that I was that baby, it won't bring Eva back," she warned him. "Whatever potential she had… Whoever she was going to be after growing up with a stable, loving family… That ain't me, you understand? If I'm her…" she croaked and scrubbed angrily at another stupid tear. "They broke her… And she's not coming back."
James stared at the woman in front of him and saw more clearly what his parents had tried to explain to him time and again. Emma was lost. Lost to her thoughts and the demons that plagued her. He let the tense silence stretch on as he picked his next words carefully. "Whether you're her or not, I think you're pretty awesome. I missed you, Em." He noted the shock and disbelief which pulled her eyes wide and moved quickly on, knowing that she would begin to pull away if he let her linger in her thoughts for too long. "So, you need my blood to figure this out, right?"
Emma stared down at her hands for several seconds as she pulled her brain back into gear. "Yeah," she replied, her voice sounding increasingly raspy. She coughed. "I thought I was gonna have to have this conversation with David and Mary Margret but… Well, I'm glad you came by. I don't seem to be able to have a conversation with your mom without hurting her," she added regretfully.
He stared at his own hands for a moment before looking back at the older blonde. "She was pretty shaken up yesterday."
"Shit," Emma hissed, hating herself all over again. "She just… She's so nice and I don't… I don't know how to take that."
"You do, Em," he insisted gently. "It's just scary, right?"
A choked laugh bubbled up from inside the bounty hunter. "Yeah. It's terrifying." The tears were falling despite her efforts to keep them in now and she blew out a lungful of frustrated air. "I'm sorry."
"Thanks," James responded. "I appreciate it." An awkward silence descended on them for a minute or two before he took pity on her and changed the subject. "So, how's the case going?"
"Smooth," Emma replied. He waited patiently for her to either answer his question or return to their original topic and she was reminded that this peaceful approach of his had always unnerved her. Not so much anymore though; he wasn't out to make her look bad like she'd always thought. He genuinely liked her. Weird, she thought. "It's going ok, I suppose."
"You don't know?" James asked, genuinely confused.
"Regina's been on my back about this DNA test. I don't get chance to ask her much else." Is that it? Really? Or have you just been so wrapped up in your own shit that you forgot to ask? She groaned and worked her fingers roughly through her hair. "I should have made more of an effort though. I know she's been working on it with a team of lawyers."
"So, getting the DNA test out of the way would help?" he suggested slyly. "That's what you were going to ask me, wasn't it? If I'd do the test instead of asking Mom and Dad."
"Yeah," she answered and immediately felt another weight lift from her shoulders. That was another thing he always did, called Mary Margret and David 'Mom and Dad' in a way that encompassed her under their parental umbrella. Weird, she thought again, but this time she realised that it was a good kind of weird. Maybe this whole family thing wouldn't be the train wreck she imagined it could be.
Both still struggling. Will their collective stubbornness be their downfall?