One Year Later

Emma Swan lived with her son, Henry, and her boyfriend, August, in a small two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan.

They had moved here a year ago after their old home in Maine had been destroyed by a fire a few days before they were due to go on vacation to the coast.

August had convinced them to go ahead with the vacation anyway and joined them a few days before they were due to go to their new home.

Thankfully, it had all happened over the summer break, and Henry had settled well into his new school, making new friends and quickly catching up with his classmates.

Emma flipped the last batch of pancakes and placed them on the kitchen island. "Breakfast's ready," she called. "I'm not."

August appeared from the bathroom, brushing a kiss to her lips as he passed. "Go ahead, sweetheart. I'll make sure Henry doesn't overload on sugar."

"You'd better," Emma said playfully. "It's not fair on Derek for us to leave him with that."

August smiled, lifting her left hand to his lips and kissing her knuckles.

Now Emma finally had a moment to breathe from her work as a bail bondswoman, August had insisted on taking her out for a day, just the two of them, and their downstairs neighbour, Derek Walsh, had offered to have Henry visit while they did.

A side effect from her job - and from growing up in the foster system - Emma was wary about leaving Henry with anyone, something that hadn't made her life easy when he was a baby and she was a young single mom trying to get by.

But Derek was a firefighter, and he was going to take Henry to the fire station, so Emma felt comfortable leaving him.

Besides, she had a feeling that August wanted some privacy for a very good reason - and given his recent habit of kissing her left hand and Henry's recent habit of grinning at her for no apparent reason, she had a feeling she knew what it was.

On her way to the bathroom, Emma knocked on her son's bedroom door. "Henry Swan, come and get breakfast before your dad eats it all."

"I'm up!"

Emma rolled her eyes - he wasn't even thirteen yet, and yet he was already such a teenager.

Technically, of course, August wasn't Henry's dad, but he had been as good as, since the day they met, when Henry was a few months old.

Gently closing the bathroom door behind her, Emma grabbed her make-up bag, humming to herself.

She would never have believed, nearly thirteen years ago, as she sat pregnant in a jail cell, that her life would turn out like this.

Standing on her tiptoes, she steadied herself on the bathroom sink; she really needed to get August to move the mirror lower. She'd have done it herself, but the slightest sign of damage and they'd lose their deposit, and her boyfriend had a knack for home improvement and leaving no sign of it afterwards.

"Whoa!"

Emma froze. "Honey, are you okay?"

"Yeah, sorry Em," August called back. "A pigeon just flew in through the window."

Emma chuckled. "Well, try and be surprised more quietly next time, so I don't nearly blind myself with mascara."

August didn't respond, which she found a little odd, but then he was probably trying to get rid of the wayward bird.

Surprisingly quietly, she realised a few minutes later.

Her job led to a certain amount of paranoia and she put her make-up away, withdrawing her gun from her purse just in case.

Quietly, she opened the bathroom door, sticking her head out.

What if it wasn't a bird? What if it was something else, and August had told her that to make sure she stayed safe?

When she stepped round the corner, there was no bird.

But there was also no one else in the apartment, and she relaxed, putting the gun away.

The movement caught August's eye, and he smirked. "Paranoid much?"

"I would have expected a bird to be louder," Emma said. "What happened to it?"

"It flew out," August said. He was still standing by the now-closed window, holding what looked like a piece of paper and what might have been a small bottle, which he stuffed in his pocket.

"What's that?" Emma asked curiously. "I didn't hear you get the mail."

"I haven't," August said. "Emma … You know I love you."

Emma's eyes widened. "Now?"

"Now what?" August asked apparently bewildered.

"Nothing," Emma said hastily. "Yes, I know you love me. Why?"

"Just …" August hesitated, before crossing the room and kissing her.

There was a strange taste lingering on his lips, but Emma could hardly pay attention to that when he kissed her like that, all lust and desperation, his hands gripping her hips, and …

Emma's eyes flew open, a thousand images assaulting her at once.

Giving Henry up … Finding Storybrooke … Meeting August … Losing August … Neverland … Her parents …

Breaking the kiss with a gasp, Emma pulled herself out of August's arms, needing a bit of space to figure out exactly what had just happened.

"Are you still with me, Princess?"

"You … You haven't called me that all year," Emma said softly.

"You didn't know," August said.

"You remembered?" Emma asked.

"Not exactly," August said, pulling the bottle out of his pocket again. "This was a memory potion. It came with the bird."

"Mama!"

Emma spun around as Henry's door flew open and he rushed out, face white. "Henry?"

"Mama, I remember! Mom's gone!"

Emma took her son in her arms, pressing a kiss to his head, her heart breaking a little as the realisation set in that her life with him was a fabrication. "It's alright, Henry. I don't understand; how would anyone send a memory potion? They would have to have done it from the Enchanted Forest, right?"

"Getting an object through a portal is much easier than creating a portal for a person," August said.

"And how did it work?" Emma asked, not really paying attention. "Regina said that we would forget because Storybrooke no longer exists."

"Maybe it does again," August said. "This came with it."

Still keeping Henry tucked in her arms, Emma reached out to take the note.

Pinocchio,

You need to get Emma back to Storybrooke. There's another curse coming.

Baelfire