I own nothing except my delusions.
Enraged, Emma felt her blood boil.
"You lost him?" she asked, barely containing herself. "Out here?"
Neal's head snapped to her, his expression angry. "I left him in one spot while I went down. When I got back, he was just gone. There were no walkers or anything, he was just gone. Besides, don't act like you're the only one that's mad and worried about him."
Her temper flaring, fought to keep from screaming at him, knowing it could possibly attract the dead. "Did you even look for him after he was gone? And how do you know that it wasn't a walker? He doesn't even know how to fight, because you haven't taught him how to defend himself."
"So this is my fault?" he yelled.
Expelling a hard breath, Emma closed her eyes, willing herself not to go up to him and hit him. "Maybe if you hadn't have left him alone in the forest with walkers running around, he wouldn't be missing right now."
Quickly stepping between them, Mary Margaret raised her hands to try to defuse them. "Arguing won't solve anything. It's not helping us find Henry." She looked back at David. "Have you been to where Henry disappeared?"
"Yeah, but we didn't find anything," David said, still keeping his own anger under control. "We can go back. You're the best at tracking, so you might be able to find something."
She readjusted her bow on her shoulder. "Then lead the way."
As David turned to lead them back to the forest, with Mary Margaret right behind him, Emma quickly checked her gun and knife, knowing she had enough rounds left. She quickly followed them, Killian, Liam, and Ian behind her as the other's stayed behind in case Henry came back.
Being away from Neal, she felt her anger abating as fear took over. Henry was alone, and had no way of defending himself. No one knew where he was, or why he had even gone. She wanted to call out to him, praying he would answer, but knew that it would only likely draw walkers near her or him.
Guilt washed over her, knowing if she hadn't had left to go on a run, Henry would likely be sitting with everyone back at the camp by a fire, reading one of his fairy tale books. If she hadn't have gone, she could have stayed with him, keeping him safe.
She felt like a complete failure as a mother.
She started when she felt Mary Margaret's reassuring hand on hers.
"We'll find him," she promised in a confident voice. "You and Henry are a part of our family, and we always find each other."
Offering her a weak smile, Emma nodded.
"If the lad's anything like his mother, he's gonna be fine," Killian said, coming closer to them.
"And with any luck, he hasn't taken after his father," Liam added, clearly trying to put her at ease.
She released a small chuckle in response.
The sun had almost completely set by the time they got to where Neal had been with Henry, light barely peeking through the break in the trees.
Instantly taking interest, Mary Margaret crouched down, her hand lightly brushing the earth.
"This is where they were originally," she muttered, standing to examine more of the prints.
Her brow pinched as she moved, seeing more prints. Emma moved beside her, seeing the multiple prints herself.
"Oh my god," Mary Margaret said, looking at an area where the earth had shifted. She looked up, her green eyes wide in anticipation and voice tight. "There's multiple tracks here, and what looks like almost a fight or struggle before the tracks lead back that way."
She pointed to the northwest, where Emma saw the tracks leading.
"What are you saying?" Ian asked uneasily.
Mary Margaret looked directly at Emma. "Henry was taken by people."
"Hold on," David said. "You mean that someone came by and kidnapped Henry?"
"A few people," Mary Margaret confirmed as she stood up.
Emma closed her eyes, willing herself to remain calm.
"Then he's still alive," David replied, looking back at Emma. "If someone went to this effort to take him, they won't kill him."
"You don't know that," Emma whispered, remembering many cases David had worked where victims kidnapped, especially children, had been killed by their captors.
She remembered the general rule of before; after seventy-two hours they were looking for a body more than a live victim. She didn't even want to think of what Henry's odds were in the woods at night with walkers roaming everywhere.
"If he's with others for now, he's likely safe," Mary Margaret said, trying to sooth her.
David shook his head apologetically. "And it's too dark to track him."
Eyes wide, Emma stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"If we all go out tonight, we'll likely just be shooting each other in the dark," Liam said in a quiet voice.
Sighing, David rubbed his eyes. "We can't look for Henry tonight. I'm sorry, Emma."
"So we just leave him alone for the night and hope he's still alive in the morning?" she asked in disbelief.
"That may be our only choice," Mary Margaret whispered.
Emma blinked, wanting to scream. She shook off David's comforting hand when he rested it in her shoulder, quickly striding away from the group to return to the camp.
She heard the others follow closely behind her, none of them approaching her.
They didn't meet any walkers on the way, giving them a straight shot with no stops. She wished something would have come their way, something to give her the excuse to take out her anger.
She didn't care if David was right, only that her son was missing and alone.
Emma stared at the dancing flames of the fire, unable to sleep like most of the other's.
Lance had gone to check the perimeter, leaving her alone by the fire.
She didn't even go into the tent she and Henry shared with Neal, unable to even look at the man, much less be near him.
"Swan," she heard whispered, whipping her head around to see Killian standing behind her.
He was completely dressed, wearing his leather jacket and armed. He quickly motioned for her to come to him.
"What?" she more demanded than asked.
"Let's go find your boy," he said.
Suddenly finding herself feeling hopeful, she quickly rose, following him to the Jeep where they kept some of the weapons and supplies to restock on ammo and grab some flashlights.
Making sure the coast was clear, they maneuvered around the alarm systems, taking off back into the dark forest.
They waited until they were a good distance away before turning on their lights, remembering the path to where Henry had disappeared.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked him.
He glanced at her once, his blue eyes bright even in the dark, before answering. "Because I can see how much it's hurting you that Henry is gone. It's killing you to not be looking for him. Plus let's just say I can almost empathize with him right now."
Quickly remembering how he had told her he had been abandoned as a child, she nodded, her throat tight. "Thank you."
He nodded, continuing to the spot and keeping watch for walkers.
Arriving back at the site, Emma examined the ground, seeing the tracks. Her eyes scammed the ground, seeing where the prints led to before following the trail.
"Swan, you're son's strong," Killian said, sensing her anxiety growing. "That much I do know. He's gonna be fine, and we'll get him back."
Her throat tight, she nodded, trying to block the images of Henry in danger, scared, or dying from her mind.
"He doesn't know how to fight," she told him in a low, strained voice. "Neal hasn't taught him to."
"But he's smart," he countered. "You know he's gonna be fine until we can get to him."
"I sure hope so," she muttered quietly.
"Can I ask you something?" Killian questioned after a while.
Suddenly nervous, she hesitantly nodded.
He looked over at her, his brow pinched as if she was a complicated puzzle he couldn't figure out. "I've been trying to figure it out, but why are you with Neal? He seems like a right bastard, and you tolerate him at best."
Sighing, she shook her head. "I never knew my parents, I was just abandoned on the side of the road a couple days after I was born. I grew up in the system, and ran away just before my seventeenth birthday. I met Neal soon after that. He was older than me, but he was the first person to actually care about me. We got by by committing petty thefts, but it wasn't bad. We had talked about making a home somewhere. I really thought we were in love.
"One day we found a wanted poster of him because he had stolen some watches a while back. He wanted to leave, go to Canada, and because I loved him, I wanted to help him. So, I went to pick up the watches where he left them so we could fence them. I gave them to him, and we split up so he could get rid of them.
"The cops were waiting when I got to the rendezvous place," she said simply. "An 'anonymous tip' was given, so they were waiting. Because I was underage, I was sentenced to spend eleven months in jail. About a month in, I found out I was pregnant.
"I was going to give him up," she whispered. "I wasn't ready to be a mother. I gave birth cuffed to a bed at seventeen. I don't know what it was, but just the second I heard him, something just changed. I knew I still wasn't ready to be a mother, but I wanted to be. I couldn't give him up."
Despite feeling herself getting emotional, she found herself smiling at the memories of her son as a baby.
"He was placed in Storybrooke for the time being until I could get out," she continued. "I've actually kept in contact with the woman who was his foster mother over the years. But that's actually how I met Mary Margaret and David. I moved with them to Boston, and started a life with Henry there. It was hard, but things were really, really good."
She swallowed before glancing at him and continuing. "One day, when Henry was about four, we were having a normal day at home when someone came to the door. Henry was at that stage where he thought he was a big boy and could answer the door. He got there before I could, and when I finally did get there, I saw Neal staring down at Henry in shock.
"He ignored me when I asked what he was doing there, and asked Henry how old he was. Henry didn't know any better, and told him, and Neal figured it out pretty fast. Apparently he had come to try to patch things up even though it had been years, but it quickly turned into almost a fight because he was mad that he never knew about Henry."
"But he left, and you had no way of even telling him," Killian interjected. "That's not your fault."
She gave him a small smile of appreciation.
"For Henry, Neal decided to stay around," she told him. "Honestly, it was far from ideal. It was completely different from before. Henry had started asking me why he didn't have a dad before, so I thought that he would have that at least if I got back together with Neal. Neither me or Neal were happy, but we stayed together for Henry. He became really possessive, too. Like it used to be whenever I was around David, Neal would always pick a fight. It was years before he stopped trying to push David away.
"I tried to hide as much of the fighting as I could from Henry, but of course, there were a lot of times he saw or heard us. I tried to hide it because I wanted Henry to have an actual family. I know he had me, and Mary Margaret and David, but I wanted him to have a normal family.
"Now, I really regret letting Neal come back into our lives like that."
She paused, feeling completely exposed. Mary Margaret and David knew of all of her past and trouble with Neal having witnessed most of it, but it was different with Killan, almost as if she were baring her soul to him.
Emma didn't know if it was her fear for Henry or that she somehow inexplicably knew she could trust Killian, whatever the strange bond that their relationship was, but she found herself wanting to tell him about the books.
"That's why I give Henry the books," she said, feeling her voice wavering and her eyes watering. "The fairy tales. He had to grow up too fast, and now with how everything's fallen apart, I want him to keep something of his childhood a little longer. I want him to keep some of his innocence in this world, to still have some hope left."
She started slightly when she felt a brush against her hand, looking up to see Killian looking at her with soft eyes.
"You just wanted to give him his best chance," he replied. "You're a good mother, Swan. You did everything you could to give him a normal, happy life. No one can fault you for that."
Giving him a slightly watery smile, she nodded. "Thanks for listening."
He nodded. "Of course, love."
He suddenly hesitated, unsure. "This may be forward, but after we find him, I'd be more than happy to teach him to defend himself. I have training, and I could probably even get my brothers to help."
Stunned, she stared at him, feeling her breath leave her lungs. "You'd do that?"
"Aye," he nodded.
"Thank you," she said gratefully.
He offered her a warm smile in return. "Let's just focus on getting him back, shall we?"
"Yeah," she agreed, wiping at some of the moisture under her eyes, feeling lighter.
They easily moved together through the trees, following the tracks toward where Henry had been taken.
Emma thought it was easy between the two of them, that they did work well together. She found that despite his tendency for flirting, Killian was easy to be around, his presence relaxing her, yet she still felt slightly on edge beside him.
Despite that, she knew she owed him for being the one to actually propose they search for Henry and offering her his help.
She wondered if the people at camp knew they had left because most had been asleep.
Glancing up, she saw very faint traces of light coming though the canopy of the trees, realizing dawn was approaching, before stopping suddenly, hearing the shuddering, raspy breaths of the dead.
Throwing her hand up, she stopped Killian, making him look at her curiously before hearing the sounds for himself.
"Where do you think they're coming from?" he asked her as he pulled his knife.
Pulling her own knife, she scanned the surrounding area with her flashlight. "I don't know. Just be careful."
Carefully and as quietly as possible, they continued to follow the tracks in the lightening forest as Emma felt her stomach sink, fearing the walkers were close to Henry, or possibly even worse. The noises grew as they continued.
She saw the wire just as Killian was about to hit it, quickly lunging forward to grab him and spin him away from it. Her chest pressed to his, she looked over his shoulder at the wire, seeing it undisturbed.
"You know Swan, if you wanted to get close to me, all you had to do was ask," he said in a flirtatious tone.
"Get off yourself," she bit back as she detangled herself from him, knowing he was trying to get a rise out of her. "Did you not see that wire?"
"I suppose it will excuse for you grabbing me," he responded. "But next time, don't stand on ceremony."
Glancing back at her, he winked.
She fought the sudden flutter in her chest, noticing he couldn't wink, that both his eyes closed, however marginally, when he did it.
He looked down to where he had been about to step, crouching down to examine the line.
"What the hell," he muttered, all joking melting away as he looked to where the wire was attached to a tree beside them, complicated knots and rigging camoflouged with the foliage.
"What is this?" Emma asked, noticing a small but sharp blade hooked up to cut the ropes if the line was triggered.
Cautiously stepping over the line, she started slightly when she got to the other side, seeing the tree had been hollowed out, the ropes around it containing a walker inside, snapping its teeth at her. Glancing around quickly, she saw the other surrounding trees all connected, each stuffed with a walker, making her realize the source of the noises.
"What the hell is going on here?" she asked breathlessly. "Look at this. And don't step on that line!"
Moving to stand beside her, Killian's eyes widened as he saw what she discovered.
"I don't know if this was glorified boy scouts or what," Emma muttered.
"Swan, if I had to guess, I would say whoever took Henry is nearby," he said quietly, his eyes on the struggling walkers. "People don't set up a trap this elaborate for no reason."
She nodded, stepping back to the first walker and sinking her knife through its skull.
Glancing over, she saw him on the other side doing the same.
The last walker slumped against its constraints and the forest quiet again, they continued past the trap, hearing faint sounds of people.
Ducking behind some trees, they looked toward where the sounds were coming from, seeing the light of a fire in the distance. Carefully, they creeped closer, able to begin making out the individual figures.
Emma was shocked at the realization that the camp was made entirely of teenage boys. All of them, including the ones sleeping, had weapons, crude bows and spears making up the majority. The tallest of the boys had a massive club beside him.
Animal pelts hung around them, being used as blankets and even clothes by the looks of some of the boys. All of the boys had a feral look, as if they had completely embraced their wild sides.
Sharing a quick look with Killian, she saw he was just as surprised at the camp.
Looking back, Emma examined the site again, her breath catching as she looked at a figure by the fire, seeing a scared and tired Henry staring at the flames.
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