FFnet really doesn't like long chapters hence why I'm putting them here. Plus I did quirky summaries so I'm adding them here too.

Also apparently the formatting in terms of italics and bold probably went out the window.

Chapter 3: The death of the author is taken to a whole new level

Where nothing is as anyone remembers and there's a lot of whiplash

When Emma came to, she just felt the hard ground beneath her, and a banging headache. She tried to sit up, but couldn't figure out which way was up.

She finally managed to figure that out by cracking open her eyes and trying to find the sky. After groggily sitting up, she scanned for Henry, finding him a few feet from her.

Crawling, she made her way to him, her head feeling too heavy to cross this distance walking. She gently shook him awake.

"Henry? Kid? Wake up."

"Mom?" Henry groused. He didn't seem to be in a much better shape than her, and just clutched his head.

Emma's foggy mind was slowly clearing, and she began sit up and look around her. They were in a forest clearing, lush green and calm, almost magical.

It had worked?

"Where are we?" Henry asked.

"I-" Emma faltered. "I think we're inside the book. The Enchanted Forest."

She looked to him, and from his face, she knew he was not exactly buying that one. "You mean to tell me that the deranged creep was telling the truth?"

"Yeah." And then she realized what she had said. "Henry, please let me explain to you-"

She extended a hand towards him, but he swatted it away and turned away from her to sit up too.

"Henry, look at me."

Nothing.

"Emma! Henry!" Emma's head whipped around to hear Red making her way towards them, clearly having acclimatized much faster than them. "There you are."

A groan from near them drew their attention, and they saw the new woman was just coming to.

Red immediately rushed to her, and Emma felt like she had to tell Henry the truth now or things would only get worse. "Look Henry, I'm sorry I lied to you, but would you have believed me if I had told you the truth? That your mom had gotten sucked into a book?"

"You could have tried," Henry spat back.

Emma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I barely believed it myself! The night she went missing...it was the worst night of my life. I just wanted to protect you."

Henry scrambled to stand up and he glared at her. "Maybe you shouldn't protect me."

Now Emma felt that he was going to far and she stood up as well. "I am your mother, young man! You don't get to talk to me like that."

"I don't care!" he roared back.

"Guys, keep it down," Red cautioned, helping the author up. "We don't know what kind of trouble we'll attract…"

But neither of the two were paying attention to her.

"You should care! For all I know, she could have been dead in this land! I didn't want to give you false hope!" Emma was yelling back.

"So making me think she was dead for sure was better?"

"It was more realistic! I had no way of reaching her."

"You still should have told me!"

Any further argument was stopped by an arrow whizzing past them and hitting a nearby tree.

They all whipped around to look at the source, and found a band of people on horses. All of them were wearing hoods.

The person who had shot the arrow nocked another one and called out, "No one move!"

It was woman. And Red, who had been standing near the side, walked out onto the clearing, and said, "I am Red, these are my friends."

"Red?" the woman lowered her arrow and got down from her horse, lowering her hood.

"Snow!" Red's face lit up at seeing her old friend. They embraced, laughing.

"You look so different!" Snow said once they parted, taking in her friend's strange new clothes and different hairstyle.

"And you don't look much older than I last saw you," Red said. "Maybe a bit more tired."

"A lot has happened since you last left," Snow said. Then she looked towards Emma and Henry and Lacey. "And apparently you've been busy."

"Right. These are my friends, First up is Lacey-" After a beat, Red turned to Lacey and asked, "Or is your name Belle?"

"Belle?" Snow asked, her voice catching.

Red seemed puzzled by Snow's recognition of Lacey. "You know her?"

Lacey just shyly waved. "Sorry I'm a bit late."

Snow's surprise had faded to anger. "Eight years late! I thought you had perished! And what of my daughter? Where is she?"

Lacey pointed to Emma. "Right there. In one piece"

Emma for her part, was feeling her entire brain short circuit. "What?" was all she managed to blurt out.

"More secrets?" Henry accusingly asked.

"I swear to you I have no idea what they're talking about," Emma said.

Henry scoffed as if he didn't believe her.

"Emma?" Snow had turned to her, and was looking as if her will to live had come back.

Emma blinked, not daring to say a word. Was this her mother?

Snow made her way up to her and looked deep into her eyes. Emma felt like she knew her from somewhere.

"Mom?" Emma squeaked, eyes shining with tears.

At that, Snow went in for a hug, and Emma let her, breathing that a scent that she didn't even know how it was familiar.

"You came back," she breathed.

Emma's mind was reeling. So she just held fast to the woman - her mother - as hard as she could.

From the side, Henry could see that this moment was genuine. Perhaps he had been a bit hard on his mother, and he should try to see it from her side.

Soon enough, Snow let her go, but still kept her close to drink in every detail. "Come, we'd better get away from here and we can catch up."

It seemed that then she noticed Henry, and said, "Oh I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name."

"Henry," Emma responded for him. "My son."

Henry smiled awkwardly, not sure what to say, but like his mother, blurted out the first thing that came to his mind, "Hey grandma."

That made Snow stumble back. But she quickly recuperated with a watery laugh. "It seems that I have missed a lot. Now come."

They walked back towards the horses, and one of the horsemen said, "We don't have enough horses to take everyone back, your Majesty."

Snow waved him off. "We can walk to the camp, you and the troops go on ahead."

Lancelot nodded. "And what of your horse?"

Snow turned to Henry and asked, "Would you like to ride a horse with Lancelot?"

Emma figured that Henry might scoff, claiming he's not a kid anymore, but his face lit up and he immediately and eagerly agreed.

Seemed like her mom knew her way with kids. Emma cringed. Now that the surprise had worn off, she was trying to fight off the weirdness of thinking that this mere stranger with her familiar perfume was her mom. She figured she wanted to walk so they could talk. It made her want to get on a horse herself.

But as Lancelot began teaching Henry the basics and galloping off, she resigned herself to her fate.

"So…" Emma awkwardly began.

"I want to know everything about you," Snow stated. "Spare nothing."

Well obviously Emma wasn't feeling like sharing everything. So she began telling her a truncated version about her life, about Henry and raising him, her job repairing old books, about Regina going missing. And then Red, Rumpelstiltskin and Lacey showing up.

"It was a bit of a wild ride," Emma said with a wry smile. She pointed to Red, "I hadn't seen her in years," she then pointed to Lacey, "And I had no idea who she was."

Snow was puzzled to say the least, and whipped around to face Lacey, "You didn't raise her?"

Lacey cringed. "Not exactly. We got separated in the trip and I lost her, so she ended up living in the foster system as far as I know."

"She what?! How do you lose a child? My child! You promised me she would be safe from the imp!"

"And she is safe, isn't she? Alive and in one piece!" Lacey retorted. In that moment, Emma caught a glimpse of who this woman really was: angry and defeated.

"But miserable! What kind of life did she live without a family of her own?" Snow responded, raising her voice as well.

"She had a book with all of your stories!" Lacey countered.

"I could care less! I wanted my child with me! Not living with my stories!"

At that point, Emma was beginning to doubt that they were going anywhere with the current discussion. So she decided to intervene, "I have a family. My wife Regina, and my son Henry. And right now, the only thing I want is to get Regina back."

Snow knew what Emma was doing, and she felt a twinge of pride for her daughter. She seemed to have grown up into quite a level-headed and mature woman. Even if she wished she could have been the one to teach her all of that.

"Speaking of which," Emma continued, "you haven't come across any kind, beautiful brunettes lost trying to get back to my world, have you?"

"Alas no. But the past few years have been quite chaotic," Snow said. Then she turned to Red, "Since you left three years ago, things have changed plenty."

"Three?" Red repeated. "Snow, I've been gone for six years."

Snow looked flabbergasted. Then she turned to Emma. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-six," Emma responds, causing Snow to gasp and stumble. 'Whoa, what age was I supposed to be?"

"Eighteen!" Snow said with a gasp. "I can't believe-"

Emma snorted. "Yeah, not possible, Henry's eleven, he couldn't exist otherwise."

"Time passes by differently between these two lands," Lacey explained nonchalantly, as if the surprise was nothing new to her.

"I can tell," Snow gritted.