Chapter 2:

For as long as she could remember, Bella had had Emma in her life. They hadn't always been in the same group homes or Foster houses but they always seemed to cross each other and they went to the same schools. They had been friends from the beginning and their friendship had only grown since that day, which is why, now that they were about the turn 28 together (they had the same birthday), they lived together in the same small apartment, in Boston. They were each other's family and would stay that way forever, even if they ended up finding their own families (or created them).

They had moved in together for good when Emma got out of jail in Phoenix and had stayed together ever since.

"Something smells good." Emma complimented shortly after closing the front door.

"It better, I spent all afternoon baking this cake." Bella smiled.

"If it tastes as good as it smells, it'll be delicious. I think I gained a few pounds just smelling it." Emma assured her.

"Well, it won't harm you to gain a few pounds, you could use them." Bella chuckled before she added:

"Did you get your guy?"

"Don't I always?" Emma asked and Bella chuckled.

"Then it's a double celebration. Our birthday, and you catching a bad guy." Bella smiled.

"If that's the case, you should bake me a cake every day!" Emma teased Bella.

"True." She replied in a giggle.

"He wasn't only a bad guy though, he was also a jerk. I broke his nose before I left." Emma shook her head as she helped herself to a glass of white wine.

"Well, nobody ever said that you had to return them in perfect condition. I'm sure his ex wife would have loved to break his nose as well." Bella chuckled.

"True."

Bella then light the candles on the cake.

"Together?" She asked her blond friend.

"As always." Emma smiled and nodded.

With her eyes closed, Emma wished for what she always wished: to have her family back, to know who they were, why they had given her up, if they loved her at all.

Bella also had her eyes closed and she wished for the same things she always did as well: to find happiness, she didn't care if it came from finding her family or love, all she wanted was to be happy, finally.

They opened their eyes at the same time and just when they blew on the candles, someone rang on the doorbell.

"Are you expecting anyone?" Emma asked Bella who shook her head.

"Maybe it's one of our wishes coming true, unless you've order a couple of male strippers for our birthday I wouldn't complain by the way." Bella suggested, getting an eye roll from her friend.

"Yeah, right. Strippers is exactly what we need right now." Emma chuckled.

"Wouldn't hurt." Bella replied with an amused smile.

Since she was the one sitting the closest to the door, Emma stood up and went to open it, hoping whoever was at the door would leave quickly so that she could sit down and enjoy her piece of cake and glass of wine in front of a movie, with Bella.

"Are you selling cookies or something?" Bella heard Emma ask and she decided to join her, her wallet at the ready.

She always bought cookies or candy from boy or girl scouts.

"Are you Emma Swan?" The little boy asked.

"Yes. Who are you, kid?" Emma asked him.

"My name is Henry. I'm your son." He declared.

"What?" Emma exclaimed as the boy pushed his way into the apartment.

"I thought you asked for a close adoption?" Bella asked Emma in a whispered voice.

Emma nodded and, much paler than before, went in to bathroom and locked herself in.

"So, who are you?" Henry asked Bella.

"My name is Bella. I'm Emma's best friend. We were almost cousins once but they ended up having their own children and gave us back…" She replied, not really sure why she had told the last part to the kid.

"Were you always friends?" Henry asked her curiously.

"More or less… I mean, we weren't always together as children, sometimes we'd be in different families or group homes but we stayed in touch and went to the same schools most of the time. Anyway, as far as I remembered, she was my best friend." Bella explained while cutting a piece of cake and giving it to the little boy with a glass of orange juice.

"So, what are you doing here, kid?" Emma asked Henry as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom.

"I came to bring you back home with me." Henry declared.

"You're kidding me, right? You have a home, you were adopted." Emma shook her head.

"The town I live in, Storybrook, is placed under a curse and you're the only one who can break it because you're the Savior. Your parents are there too. They gave you up to save you, to give you your best chance." Henry explained quickly and very seriously.

"This can't be happening right now… Curses? Really? What's your number kid? I'll call your parents right away and have them pick you up." Emma replied.

"I don't have parents, just my mom and she's the Evil Queen. She's the witch who cursed the town. She doesn't really love me, she just wants power." He argued.

"Life isn't a fairy tale, kid. Evil witches don't exist." Emma shook her head, the phone in her hand.

At that moment, Emma fought to keep away a memory she had tried to forget for so long, one of a woman who wanted to adopt her and had turned out to be a crazy woman who believed in magic. As hard as she tried to forget about it and never to think of it again, Emma couldn't prevent it from coming back in mind at that moment and one look at Bella informed her that her best friend thought of the same event. Emma had told it to her so often, Bella knew it almost as though she had been there herself.

"You could always call the cops Emma. If he doesn't want you to call his adoptive mother, you could call the cops." Bella suggested, knowing it would change Henry's mind.

"I'd simply say she kidnapped me." Henry lied.

"And they'd believe you because I'm your birth mother. But you forget one thing, kid: I have a superpower. I can tell when someone is lying to me, and you, are lying." Emma smirked.

"Please… Just come with me… Once you're there you'll see that I'm saying the truth…" Henry pleaded.

"About the curse?" Emma asked doubtfully.

"Yes… Please, you have to believe me!" Henry pleaded.

"It's not that far Emma, you could always drive him back. Once there, you'll use your magic power to see if his adoptive mother really loves him and is really evil or not." Bella suggested to Emma while Henry nodded eagerly.

"Bella… I know that you're a writer and that you love fairy-tales but you can't possibly believe this, can you?" Emma asked Bella after pulling her to the side.

"Of course not. I wish it could be possible and that magic really existed, that would be pretty cool, but I doubt something like this could ever happen." Bella shook her head.

"Why do you want me to drive him back then? You don't understand… It's hard for me to see him… He reminds me so much of Neal. Giving him away was hard enough in the first place." Emma shook her head, obviously, it was hard for her to speak about Neal and to think of him.

She had never really forgotten him and still loved him deep down.

"Emma, even if this curse story is impossible, the fact that he looked for you and invented this story to get you back into his life is the proof that he's unhappy with the life he has… Maybe his adoptive mother isn't an evil witch, but she could be mean or hurt him. If he's asking for your help, it's because he needs you, whatever the reason." Bella argued.

"I… Are you coming with me?" Emma asked her friend, knowing that arguing was futile.

"I can't, I'm sorry. I've got an appointment tomorrow morning with my editor about my next book. I can't miss it." She shook her head.

"I'm afraid. Everything is going to change now." Emma admitted.

"I know, but I'm sure that you can do it. And if you decide to stay behind for a few days, just call me and I'll send you whatever you need until I can join you." Bella told Emma who nodded and, once Henry finished his piece of cake, directed him to her car to drive him back to his house.

. The sorcerer's thoughts.

Finally, it's happening.

The past 28 years have been torture, watching her life without being able to reach over and help her... I can't count the number of times I wished I could reach through my mirror and give her a hug or a kiss on the forehead.

I found solace in the fact that the few times Cold Ones vampires managed to find her, I was able to attack them and burn the most dangerous ones before they found her or hurt her. If magical fire can't touch them, they were the ones stupid enough to hide in a world where they have technology to create fire and throw it at things. Of course, when my apprentice and I were done with them, they were all still alive, I don't have the power to kill them, but they were hurt enough that they'd stay away from her for a while...

Now that the little boy, Henry, found my book, believed and went to get his real mother, I'm that much closer to being reunited with my Bella. I can only hope that everything goes fine for her and that she doesn't end up getting hurt.

She'll have Regina and the Dark One to face, among others...

Hopefully she won't have to face her mother before we're reunited, I don't think I could handle watching such a fight. I also hope that she doesn't catch the attention of the Blue fairy, she's one of the rare subject in which the current Dark One and I agree. Most people think her to have a pure heart and to be a definite hero but I know the truth. I know that her heart has darkness in its center and if she's good at telling people how to act, she's not always good at following her own advises... Do as I say, not as I act: That's her motto. If she knew who Bella was, that she was my daughter, she'd try to stop her, to get her away, maybe even to hurt her just to get to me.

As I watched my daughter go to bed, I went back to my writing table and, taking a blank book with the same design as Henry's Storybook that I took from the Author's library for my project, I started writing a guide to help Bella and Emma learn about their powers and how to handle them. They had powerful white magic, born from the strongest of love for Emma and strong magic for Bella. They'd need guidance and neither Regina nor Rumpelstiltskin would be able to give them that. They didn't understand white magic and pure heart for neither of them had them. Of course one of the fairies, like Blue, would be able to help them to an extend but I didn't trust her for this.

The price of magic that prevented me from contacting my daughter would allow this because it wasn't to reunite me with my daughter, it would help the savior survive and break the curse. I'm sure I'll have finished writing it once Emma manage to break the curse and everything will be fine for them. I'll find a way to get it to them. I'll be able to use my faithful Apprentice, who now lives in Storybrook, and he'll give it to them anonymously for me.

Once the curse is broken, my Apprentice will once more be my strongest ally and before that, he'll be my spy. I'll have to be careful though, he can't catch the attention of Regina, she doesn't know who he is and she can't find out that he was never cursed.

.

Bella didn't wait for Emma's return before going to bed that evening. She knew that her friend and roommate could come back late and she couldn't stay up that long. Besides, Emma could decide to stay there for the night, which Bella hoped.

That night, Bella had a dream she often had ever since she was a little girl. It felt like a memory trying to come to the surface yet what happened was so strange and impossible that it had to be the product of her fruitful imagination.

It started by Bella being laid down on a very soft and lavender smelling cushion.

For some reason, she can't stand up, speak or move around. Then, a cruel feminine laughter, resonating around her, makes her cry in fright while a deep, reassuring voice tries to calm her down as he's reasoning with the cruel voice that wants to hurt her. She doesn't see the faces that go with the voices, but she knows that they're familiar to her. Then, a ray of pure white light hits a dark green one just above her and sparks form a dome above her. She finds the lights pretty and stops crying, knowing that the deep voice will protect her. After that, she sees some sort of pointy and shiny hat, the man wants to use it against the woman but changes his mind. He's pleading but Bella can't recognize the words he uses. The woman doesn't listen to him, she's not being reasonable and so the man sends her away.

That's usually when Bella wakes up but sometimes, it goes a bit longer and the man takes her in his arms and even if she can't see his face, she knows that she's where she should be, that she's home and safe and when she wakes up from these dreams, Bella's left wanting to be in those arms again, wishing he was her father and that she had the power to make him real. To take him out of her dreams and keep him close to her in reality.

As a little girl, Bella imagined that the deep voice belonged to her father and that the cruel laughter woman was her mother but she was now a grown woman. It was probably just her imagination creating things in her head.

Maybe it was because of what Henry said about his town being cursed but that night, it felt like every dream Bella ever had in her life about fairy tales and magic came back at once, all together, to haunt her, trying to fit in together in weird ways.

When morning came, it took Bella three coffees and a cold shower to feel awake and to be able to forget about her foolish dreams. It was quickly replaced by worry when she realized that not only Emma hadn't come home, but that she hadn't called.

She calmed down a bit when Emma called her, around 9, to tell her that she had crashed into the town's sign and that since Henry had run away again, she'd help find him and come back that evening. Reassured on her friend's whereabouts, Bella went on with her day.

She wasn't a very famous author but she managed to pay the bills with her books and she had a solid fan base all over the country, some even around the world. Her books were romanced historical novels filled with magic, sex, war and love. Good always won and she had published 3 of them already and was working on the fourth one.

"Hey Emma, so, should I wait for you for dinner or not?" Bella asked her friend when the phone rang the next evening.

Emma had called the previous night to tell her she'd stay in town for the night because it was getting late.

Bella had been waiting for her friend to find an excuse to stay longer and was glad to see that she was right.

"No, I think I'll stay here for about a week. There's definitely something weird about that woman. I don't like her and her constant insistence at getting me out of town pushes me to stay even more." Emma replied.

"Okay, I can't join you tomorrow but I'll be there in a couple of days with a bag. I'll send you a few clothes in the mail tomorrow though. Will you be okay until then?"

"I'll be fine, don't worry. I've been much longer with much less and I have the emergency overnight bag in the car."

"So, how's Henry?" Bella asked her.

"He's a nice kid… Hard to resist."

"You like him."

"I do. I'm afraid Bella, I'm growing so close to him so quickly… I don't want to lose him now. It would hurt too much." Emma told her.

"What makes you think you'll lose him?"

"It was a closed adoption and his mother, the town's mayor, isn't afraid to remind me of it. I can feel that she's not a nice woman and that she doesn't love him as much as she says she does but what if my judgment is being clouded by my emotions?"

"Emma, you've never let your emotions cloud your judgment, it's not going to happen now. Trust your instinct. Now, have you made friends already?"

"Well, I met this woman, Mary-Margaret. She's nice. She bailed me out when Regina had me arrested this afternoon. According to Henry she's my mother."

"Well, at least that's something." Bella chuckled.

"The sheriff isn't that bad. Kind of hot, in the mysterious kind of way but I think that the mayor is controlling him somehow. Maybe with blackmail or maybe he really wants to do everything she says but even if he's nice, he's under her control." Emma tried to explain.

"Well then, keep an eye on him."

"Oh, I will." Emma chuckled.

"What of the town? Do you like it?"

"Surprisingly, I do. It's the kind if place where even I would easily feel home. Except there isn't much work for a bails bond person there."

"Maybe you can be a sheriff's deputy…"

"That would entail me staying for longer than a week." Emma reminded her.

"Tell you what, I stay in Boston for the next 4 days and by then, you tell me if I come to bring you a few change of clothes or if I bring everything. Something tells me it's all you'll need to make a decision." Bella told her.

"You think so?" Emma asked her, raising an eyebrow.

"I do."

"Your magical instinct?"

"Yep. Now come on, tell me more about your hot sheriff." Bella asked.

"He's not MY sheriff." Emma rolled her eyes.

"Not yet." Bella replied with a chuckle.

I hope you liked it. not many changes in this one.

Want an hint about the future of this story? Love will be found for Bella and Emma, it will also be lost, maybe for both, maybe for just one of them. I'm trying something different, something that's not always happy or fair. I hope it works for you guys.

Review please?

Lorelei Candice Black