Queen Josephine walk down the long corridor with her infant son in her arms. By daybreak he would be king. Her husband had caught a rare disease during his last military campaign, and though he had returned home as soon as possible so his personal physician could tend to him, the disease had actually destroyed his body and his mind. He had hardly recognized her the last several times she had come to see him.
At least Adam wasn't old enough to understand what was going on, lest he be traumatized by his father's deterioration.
However, that also meant he was in no position to lead their armies during this war. She could not count on her husband's brothers because they were all incompetent fools who knew more about gambling and wine then tactics or strategy. They certainly would not care if she took up the reins of the military herself. But knowing to the warfront would mean leaving Adam behind and there were few people that she trusted with her son's welfare.
When she got to her son's bedroom, Josephine placed him in his bassinet and summoned the nursemaid to watch over him while she made the proper arrangements for his care. Josephine then went outside into the garden and use the incantation her grandmother had taught her to summon the fairies.
There were two who knew to answer her call: Fiona and Tiger Lily. She had known them since she was a little girl and she knew she could trust them with Adam. They came to her at once, first appearing as two balls of light and then changing into their human forms.
"What is the matter, dear?" Tiger Lily stepped forward took Josephine's hands.
After Josephine finished telling them about her situation, Fiona answered, "Of course we'll be happy to look after your son. We know how important it is that you fight off these invaders. How long do you think you'll be gone."
"There's no way of knowing," Josephine admitted sadly, "It could be months. It could be years. I could die in battle, or be captured and executed. That's why I need you to promise you always look after Adam, no matter what happens to me."
Tiger Lily and Fiona swore, "We'll love him and raise him as if he were our own."
The next morning, the king was declared, survived by his wife, his only child, and his three younger brothers.
"Emma, you don't have anything going on this Friday, so you?" Mary asked one evening after they had put the kids to bed.
"No. Why?"
"David Nolan asked me out."
Emma looked up from the pile of police reports she was filling out. "Seriously?"
"I know, I was surprised too!" Mary exclaimed. "He always just seemed to avoid me, but I guess now he changed his tune."
"So you guys are going out," Emma smiled, genuinely happy for her friend.
"How are things going on your end?" Mary asked.
"They are definitely be better," Emma returned to the stack of paperwork. "It turns Killian and Priscilla aren't dating after all, so I was worried over nothing. But I have no idea how to approach the whole 'fairy tales are real' thing."
"I say you go for it anyway. When you though he was dating someone else, it devastated you. You can't hold him at arm's length forever and expect him to still be waiting there."
Emma took a moment to consider her words, "Do you think that's why David finally asked you out?"
"It could be."
"And I should ask Killian out?"
"It would be a start."
Emma began to look really uncomfortable. "I have never really asked someone out. The only relationship I've ever been in was with my baby's father and that's only because I ended up in his stolen car. The closest I've ever gone to being... involved with someone were a couple one night stands and one extremely regrettable affair with married man." At Mary's surprised expression, Emma quickly added, "I never claimed to be a saint. And I wasn't his first mistress."
"Well, it's not as hard as you think. Just walk up to him and ask him if he wants to go to dinner at or coffee or to a movie or something."
"What if he says no?"
"Then he says no. I know rejection sucks, but at least then you'll know where you stand."
Emma frowned, "I'll talk to him tomorrow. Might as well get it over with."
"Emma, what's holding you back? You like Killian, you have reason to believe he likes you back, so why do you seem so unhappy by the idea of asking him out?" Mary sat down next to Emma at kitchen table.
"Like I said, I don't have a track record with relationships." Emma admitted, "I'm afraid if I open up to Killian, it'll blow up in my face."
"I'm guessing when you started seeing that married man, you had a feeling it was headed toward disaster."
"You could say that."
"So it was your first ex, the father of your child, who cut you the deepest."
"Yeah," Emma admitted so quietly that Mary almost couldn't hear her.
"Do you mind telling me exactly what he did? It might help if you talk it out."
Emma had never talked about Neal before. Never thought she'd have to. She was certain that if she said no, Mary would understand and not press the issue. But she wanted to tell Mary. She had never before had someone in her life that she could be so vulnerable and exposed with, but Mary made her feel respected and safe.
So she told her everything. The day they met, how quickly she had been to fall in love with him, how she started having sex with him right away from fear that he would leave her if she didn't. The cons they had pulled, the motel rooms they had broken into, the things they had stolen. The night he sold her out to the cops and ran to Canada with a bag full of thousand-dollar watches. Going to jail. Her pregnancy. Her stillbirth.
They spoke late into the night, neither of them keeping track of how long they had been talking. Emma began crying halfway through, but she felt no shame in it. Mary wouldn't judge her.
"I like Killian so much, but I don't think I'm ready to be a relationship right now," Emma admitted. "I'll be honest with him, and I mean that much to him, he'll understand. Maybe I should start seeing a therapist again?"
"If that's what you chose to do, I'll be right behind you every step of the way," Mary promised.
King Adam, crowned in his infancy, grew up with just about every material need or desire of a little boy could dream of. He had it been trained, as all noble-born boys were, in subjects befitting his station: arithmetic, languages, history, arts, science, and he had been the king and name nearly his entire life, matters of governance and war had always been handled by his mother and uncles. Adam spent his days under the vigilant care of his fairy godmothers.
Tiger Lily was all that seemed on the surface: spirited, compassionate, and attentive. She loved Adam as any mother loved her son. Fiona, on the other hand, had a side to her that she kept hidden from view. True, she took an active part in Adam's upbringing. She taught him spells and potions, had encouraged him take up spinning when she learned of his interest in it even though it wasn't a normal pastime for a king. But still, she had allowed Tiger Lily to do the lion's share of the work while she was off in "personal business".
Personal business that eventually got her banned from Tir Nan Og, the land of the fairies.
Fiona wasn't worried about Tiger Lily finding out what she had done because she spent so time with Adam. Tiger Lily didn't have much interest in the goings-on of Tir Nan Og and had not even been there almost three centuries. What worried Fiona were the other fairies who would here of what she did and might react...negatively to her presence. If she married a human, she would be considered of the human realm and outside the judgement of fairy law. And there was only one human good enough for her.
The day of Adam's 16th birthday, his fairy godmothers through him a splendid feast to celebrate his coming of age. Tell his mother had left several months earlier to engage in another war, she had been unsure to send him presents from the distant lands she was fighting in. His uncles all attended, but paid less attention to him and more to the food and wine. Despite this, Adam enjoyed his party immensely. He had most of his friends there with him and Tiger Lily had organized endless amusements for them.
Exhausted and satisfied, Adam went to bed in the early hours of the morning. Not long after he had rested his head on his pillow, he heard someone open the door. Rising up to sit up in bed, he saw Fiona's silhouette in the dimly-lit doorway, the distant light of the corridor's lamps dancing across her pale face.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I just have a hard time believing you're all grown up now," Fiona admitted. "I still remember when you were a little baby, when your mother summoned us to look after you."
She reached and stroked his hair, then let her hand lower slightly to cup his cheek. It felt a bit strange to Adam because Fiona was never very physically affectionate toward him. He knew she loved him, she had certainly said somewhere than once, but he just assumed that she preferred not to touch other people.
Fiona kissed his forehead, "You've grown so strong and handsome, and I'm certain that you'll make a wonderful king someday."
Adam frowned, "I'm already king!"
"In title only," Fiona corrected, "Your mother holds all the real power."
"Because she has to," Adam argued, "Our kingdom is always at war and she has more military experience. I'm only two years away from the age of the majority. Then I'll be trusted to handle more responsibilities."
"Right, of course," Fiona nodded, "And once you're an adult, you'll have to find a queen. Have you thought of anyone you'll like to rule beside you."
Adam blushed. "There's one girl, Lady Pauline. She is my friend Isaac's cousin. I met her at his birthday party last year and I've been thinking about her ever since. We write each other letters and she shares her poetry with me. Her father is a duke, so I don't doubt that my mother would be alright if I married her. "
"You never told me that before," Fiona snapped, her voice suddenly loud and harsh. Her face had twisted into a stern, angry look.
The teenage boy before her flinched, "I...I didn't know how to tell you. It's not the sort of thing boys tell their mothers."
"Do you think of me as your mother, Adam?" Fiona asked, expression now softer but no more reassuring.
"Oh course," he answered immediately, surprised she would even ask.
"You already have a mother, one who gave birth to you."
"But you and Tiger Lily raised me. I know my mother the queen loves me, but she has spent most of my life on the battlefield. You're more my mother than she is."
"I am not," Fiona stated firmly.
Adam stared at her in shock. The feelings of hurt and rejection stole the breath from his lungs. All this time, she had not really loved him the way he thought she did? She didn't think of him as her son, despite the fact that she had nurtured him from time he was in his crib? She had helped him walked, taught him to paint, danced with him at his first court ball. Did that mean nothing to her?
"Y...you...you don't...love me?" his voice was thin and scared.
"Of course I do," Fiona reassured him, taking his face in her hands once more, "I love you so much, sometimes it feels like my heart will burst! Never doubt it."
Adam was confused for a moment, but before he could make sense of what Fiona had said, she leaned over and kissed him roughly on the lips. He sat there, stiff and bewildered, unsure how to react. His mind whirred too quickly for him to finish any one thought. At last she released him and she smiled triumphantly.
"What did you just do?" Adam cried. The disgust in his voice was so thick, no one could have missed it. His mouth felt like it was fire. Adam wiped his lips with the sleeve of his pajamas, but the sickening feelings remain. He felt vulnerable and exposed, violated and unsafe. His eyes turned to half-open door, hoping someone would come running in and take her away from him.
"I kissed you. I just told you I loved you, didn't I," Fiona answered, annoyed and upset.
"You're not suppose to love me like that," Adam hissed. "That was horrible!"
"Horrible? If it was so horrible, why didn't stop me?" Fiona smirked. Adam didn't have an answer. His face went red with shame. "You think you're not suppose to like it, but you're the king. You can like whatever you want."
"I don't want you like that," Adam squeaked. Just hours ago he felt like close to being a man, but Fiona's intense gaze made him feel like a little boy again. She crouched closer, like a lioness pending over a her prey, until she practically on top of him. Only their clothes and his bedspread separated their bodies. He had never felt so small and trapped. "Get off me!"
Fiona sprang up. Adam could finally breath again, but his breath stopped in his throat when he saw the blazing-hot raging shining out of her eyes.
"After everything I've done for you, you'd reject me so coldly," her voice was dangerously low. "You think I'm disgusting and horrible for what, loving you? Wanting to be with you? How could you do this to me?"
"Please just leave me alone," Adam begged.
She slapped him, hard and sharp, "You ungrateful little beast!" Fiona climbed off his bed and began walking toward the door. Just when Adam began to hope he was finally safe, she turned to glare at him hatefully. "Fine, you don't want me? I'll make sure no one wants you."
Her eyes began to glow bright gold in the darkness of Adam's bedchamber and she pointed directly at him, "By night you will be as you have always been, but during the day you'll be a beast that no one could stand to look upon. If anyone but me sees you in you're human form, you'll stay a beast forever. Unless you come to sense and marry me."
Fear struck Adam like a bolt of lightning. "You're cruel."
Fiona sneered at him, "Did you know I helped your mother name you? I had named you after my grandfather. You don't deserve his name, you ugly thing. Ah, that shall be your new name. 'Ugly thing', in the language of the fairies. Rumpelstiltskin."
