"Hey, Henry!" a very familiar voice calls out to him as he puts books in his locker. He turns to see Violet dressed in warm clothes for the February weather. She wears a purple coat that matches her namesake, knee-high black patterned boots, and a gray, knitted beret pulled over her brown ponytail. Her brown eyes light up happily at seeing him again. She embraces him tightly which takes him off-guard.

"Hey… Violet," he says quietly.

"I haven't had the chance to talk to you."

"Yeah um… I've been busy, a lot has happened in the past 72 hours."

"I heard on the news! I can't believe your mom is alive and safe!"

"She surprised all of us, basically rescuing herself," Henry says.

"You must be so happy," Violet says with the warmest smile.

Henry's heart races from Violet's embrace. He hadn't seen her in a little while, their last conversation was over the phone on that snow day… talking about setting up a date with one another.

"Yeah… Yeah, it's pretty great."

Violet lets go of Henry.

"Can… I walk you to your locker?" he asks.

"Sure," she chirps.

He then follows his crush down the hall and up a flight of stairs to another locker area. She unlocks it and he's surprised by the assortment of pictures and accessories in her locker. There's a mirror, pictures of her with her Christian friends, her party friends, a poster of Channing Tatum pasted to the back of it and stars. Stars and stars everywhere, the glow-in-the-dark kind and paper ones. They give her locker a real sense of personality and Henry remembers that Violet secretly loved astronomy and the celestial balls of fire were kind of her "thing."

As they stand at the locker, many students go by, whispering to one another and pointing at him. Henry shifts uncomfortably, knowing it was happening again. People were talking about him, probably spreading rumors about his mom and him about how she escaped and likely the baby. When the three of them had left the hospital, there were a few reporters there, but David shunned them away saying to give her some space. The one thing that they did get a good shot of was his mom's bandaged hands and her large coat. Even in the tabloids with celebrities, wearing loose clothing or large coats often meant pregnancy. His mom wasn't that noticeable yet, but on Saturday morning when he turned on the TV there was a segment of his mom's escape along with the caption of Pregnant by Captor? It made him sick to his stomach, the last thing his mom needed right now was media attention and rumors. Rumors that Violet had clearly heard already as she was getting her books out of her locker.

She bites her lip, reluctant to ask the question. "Is it true that your mom…?"

"What?"

"That your mom is pregnant with Arthur King's child?"

"No, it's not. It's not his."

"Really? How do you know?"

"It's my mom and her boyfriend's. I know she had an ultrasound in the hospital and the baby was much older than the length of time she was missing."

"That's so great," Violet says

"Yeah it is," he says with a forced smile.

"Do you know the gender?"

"Yeah, it's a girl and so far, it's healthy."

"That's so amazing, you're getting a baby sister!"

"Half-sister," he corrects.

"Right," Violet says, sensing how uncomfortable Henry was becoming and she decided to drop the subject. However, a few other people brought it up again by approaching the two of them.

"Hey Henry," a rather bulky guy, likely from the football team, with flow hair and stubble on his chin, says to them. A few girls and guys are with him, likely his friends.

"Yeah?" the teen asks.

"Is it true your mom is preggers?"

Henry bites his lip hard and swallows the building anger inside of him.

"Yeah, she is, but it's not Arthur King's baby."

"Really?" one of the girls asks.

"It's her and her boyfriend's," Henry explains, avoiding eye contact with them.

"How do you know?" another football player asks.

"They had an ultrasound," Violet cuts in quickly, knowing the last thing Henry wanted to talk about was what happened to his mom to a bunch of strangers. She shuts her locker loudly to make sure their eyes were on her. "The baby was growing before she was kidnapped."

"Is it true she was roofied?" another football player asked.

"Is it true she cut her hands?"

"Was she really kept in a cabin in the woods? That is so sketchy," a girl adds.

Henry's face is turning red in embarrassment and anger. He didn't want to be interrogated about this any longer. These people never even liked him and they only wanted the details of the story. If this hadn't happened, they probably wouldn't have known he was alive or even went to this school.

Violet can sense the tension and she speaks for Henry again. "Please leave him alone, what his mother went through is none of your business and not something you should be spreading rumors about in the locker room. Now if you'll excuse us, Henry is walking me to class."

She then grabs Henry's hand firmly and turns on her heels, guiding him away. Henry is utterly taken aback but he knows Violet is looking out for him and just goes along with it. As they leave, they hear.

"Hey Henry, glad your Mom is safe," from one of the group members.

Henry looks back once and nods before attempting to keep up with Violet. They turn a corner, out of sight of the group

"Thank you so much," Henry breathes with relief. "I didn't know what to say."

"I could tell you weren't happy about it. You don't need this attention Henry, it's none of their business nor is it mine. You can share only with people that you trust. They just want to say they know you and get on TV."

Henry was taken aback by Violet's attitude, no doubt she knew what she was talking about. He didn't want to tell anyone what was happened to his Mom, nor what was going on at home. He didn't want cameras in his face or people asking him questions, he just wanted to be invisible like before. He was dealing with so much right now, he didn't need the attention.

"You sound as if you speak from experience," he says quietly.

Violet swallows a lump in her throat and just keeps walking. She takes Henry to in front of her Biology class and then stops to face him.

"It can't be easy going through all that, they don't know what you're feeling."

"Y-You're right," he says. "They don't. Mom's not the same anymore, not since she came back..." He looks at the floor and swallows the rest of his words.

Violet looks up at him sympathetically and pats his shoulder in comfort. She decides not to ask anything else, not wanting to hurt Henry even more by thinking that all she cared about was the kidnapping. She then cups his face in her hand and their eyes meet. Henry's head spins when he takes in her milk chocolate eyes and his face flushes a bright red of attraction. He wants to kiss her again like the night of the party, they hadn't really talked all that much or seen each other since before the snow day and he asked her out on a date. A date that was still up in the air at this point.

"I can't imagine," she says. She takes in a deep breath and continues. "Maybe we can take your mind off of all that by going to the movies on Friday?"

Henry steps back in complete surprise. Did she just ask him out? Had she read his mind? His stomach has a swarm of jittery butterflies inside of it that are racing around faster and faster from Violet touching him and her asking him out. His mind is a tornado of emotions and he stands there like a doofus, trying to put words together from the storm inside of him.

"A-are you… are you asking me out?"

"Well, I'm mostly just reinstating the date you proposed before, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember," he says, almost stupidly.

"Well, I would like to go out with you… If that's okay," she says, blushing herself.

"Y-yeah, yeah, I would too." He stammers.

"So, Friday? I heard the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is good."

"Or we can go see something else," he suggests, figuring girls weren't really into comic book movies.

"No, I like Chris Pratt, he's hot and I love Baby Groot too, he's so cute,"

The bell rings then to signify that classes were starting and Henry knew he had to go to class. He'd missed enough already.

"So yeah, Friday?" he says.

"Yeah, at around 7. Does that work for you?" she asks.

"It sure does," he says, sounding like a complete moron.

"Great…" she says smiling sweetly. "I'll see you in Spanish."

Without hesitation, she pecks him on the cheek and then goes into her Biology class.

Henry stands there as if in a trance, trying to process what just happened. He's actually going out on a date with Violet. He can't believe this is happening. His heart is hitting overdrive as he nearly falls backward from shock and joy. She also kissed him again, something she hadn't done since the party. They were finally being given the chance to actually do the dating thing and now that his mom was safe, life could go back to normal… for the most part.

…

The rest of the day passes in a whirlwind with Violet keeping people away from him as they ate lunch together and tried to plan their date in more detail. By the end of the day, Henry feels like he's walking on air. He's flying towards Cloud 9.

"Hey Mom," he says, coming through the door of the apartment, and ditching his backpack. Emma is in the kitchen chopping tomatoes for dinner.

"Hey Bug, how was your day?"

"Good," he says. He looks to see that Killian is nowhere to be found.

"Where's Killian?"

"He went home to get clothes and a few other essentials," she says, comminuting to chop the vegetables, and putting them in the frying pan.

Henry suddenly feels like he's being dragged back down to earth very violently. No matter how happy he might be to his date with Violet, there was still so much going on at home, mainly Killian becoming a permanent fixture in their home.

There was nothing wrong with Killian, Henry liked him, a lot and they had become close during the whole dramatic search, but now it seems like the docks man was just moving in now without question. He was always around and he was even sharing a bed with his mom. This shouldn't surprise him considering they are having a baby and all, but it seems so fast for him and very weird. He wasn't comfortable having a man in the house all the time because, for three years, it was just him and Mom, no one else.

He bites his lip before grabbing a handful of vegetables from the cutting board.

"So, what's the deal with Killian?" he asks nonchalantly. "Is he living here now?"

Emma looks up to meet her son's eyes. Her hands shake slightly. She continues chopping, pondering an answer.

"N-Not really," she says. "Why do you ask?"

"It just seems like it is, he's always here, he sleeps in your room with you and he helps cook meals, he even helped me with my homework the other night."

"Is that so b-bad?" Emma asks, stirring the vegetables in the frying pan.

"Not really it's just… happening so quickly you know?"

Emma shuts her eyes tightly and swallows hard. Her head begins to swim a bit and the baby seems to kick against her abdomen. Her hand shakes slightly, something her son notices.

"Are you okay Mom?" he asks.

"F-Fine," she says, trying to continue with cooking dinner.

"I mean, Killian is cool and all, but is he really living here, now it seems so fast… It's a bit…"

"A bit what?"

"A bit weird…"

Emma shakes her head and tries to clean the knife in the kitchen sink when she sees her still bandaged hands and then the knife and a flashback happens.

The blood, the pain, the fear, how nervous she was. What if it didn't work? What if Arthur found out she faked it? What would he do to her? Would she still be…?

Emma breaks down in tears, dropping the knife loudly into the sink and practically collapsing onto the floor. Henry rushes to her side.

"Mom? Mom!" he gasps. "Are you okay?"

Emma doesn't respond at first, just shakes her head and rubs her hands up and down her arms. She's shaking again with sobs and her head begins to race with those terrible nights, the pain and the hopelessness of her situation came back. What she had to do to escape... the fear…

She curls up into a ball again and her sobs become heavier with each passing moment. Her chest is tight as her breaths become shorter and shorter as her entire body succumbs to her sorrow.

Henry reaches out his arm and tries to comfort his mother. She shudders under it and tries to squirm away. Her body is telling her to move, but her mind says that this is her son and he's scared too. She needs his comfort.

She leans into her son's shoulder to continue her crying. Henry's body is wracked with his own emotions, things that he'd kept bottled up for awhile, not really sure how to express them. He wants to help his mom, but at the same time, he's afraid. This wasn't his Mom anymore. She had changed so much since the last time they were together. She was more scared than ever before, she was quiet, she didn't hug him as often and she… she just wasn't the same. He begins to cry a little bit too, wanting things to just go back to normal.

Mother and son sit on the kitchen floor, holding each other as if to provide the support they'd been lacking. All their fears and emotions were being expressed on the floor, while their dinner burned in the frying pan. Henry just wanted his mother back and Emma just wanted to forget everything.

After awhile of nothing but sobs, Emma wipes her eyes and wraps her arms around Henry fully.

"I-I'm so sorry Henry," she whispers.

"For w-what?"

"For acting like this, you must be so scared and confused."

"I am Mom. I'm worried about you and everything that seems to be changing…"

"I-I know. The baby, Killian, the therapy… it's a lot to take in." Emma holds her son's head in her arms and practically cuddles him.

"I just want things to go back to the way things were," he says quietly.

"I know…" she whispers back.

"I missed you, Mom… I-I was afraid I'd never see you again."

"I know," she says. "So much as happened and you didn't deserve any of it."

"Neither did you," Henry adds.

"I know, but… it did and now I'm going to have t-to live with it."

"We, Mom, we."

Emma nods and kisses her son's head. She looks into his hazel eyes, a mixture of her's and Neal's eyes. She wanted beyond anything to make her son feel better, give him that normal life back where they just went about their day, mother and son, nothing too complicated or scary lurking in the background, just them.

"I just want to go and hit reset," she whispers, allowing Henry to lay in her lap.

"Me too."

There's a long silence, both knowing this could never happen.

She swallows. "B-But unfortunately, this is our life now and I know you have a lot of questions Bug, but I don't exactly have any answers."

"It's just happening so fast."

"I know. Change of any kind is hard."

"But I don't want change, I want you before everything happened…" he says in an almost whining voice.

"I know," she whispers, kissing his head. "It's going to be hard to accept, but things are going to have to change… for better or for worse."

"It feels like worse,"

"Right now, it does yes, but we're still here, we're still together and that's always going to stay the same."

"You promise?" he asks, looking up at his mother from her lap.

"I promise," she smiles. She kisses his forehead gently and then Henry does something he hadn't done in awhile, he kissed his mom on the cheek. He thought he'd grown too old to be kissed by his mom, but now, with everything happening, he wanted to turn back time to the good old days, when it was she and him, safe.

"Listen to me Bug, a lot is going to have to happen and we're going to have to work together. You may not like it, but… I want to give you your best shot at normal again and to do that, we'll need to make a change."

Henry sighs, knowing that his mom is right. He didn't like the change, but it was happening. Killian was now in their life and he had a baby sister on the way. Things he should be happy about, but isn't…

"Give it time," Emma says gently. "We'll figure something out as a family…"

"O-Okay," the teen nods.

The two sit in silence for a long time, while dinner burned on the stove, but neither really cared now, lost in their own thoughts and confusion. Henry felt a little better, but not a lot, clearly, he did need that night out to forget everything. He swallows, knowing what he'll have to say next.

"H-Hey Mom?"

Here's Chapter 6. Hope you guys enjoy it and here's the Henry and Emma moment oncerforlife suggested. Hope you caught the song reference I put in there. More to come. I also don't know why everyone is not receiving notifications. It must be a glitch in the system, but hopefully, the website will fix it.