A/n: I just wanted to thank everyone for the reviews! They really mean a lot to me and I greatly appreciate everyone for taking the time to leave me a line! This chapter is a little short, but the story is coming to a close. You can also find me on tumblr under the same username if you would like to drop by my ask box with questions or prompts!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Trauma is not Nothing

Emma was more functional the next day, still not able to sit up very well but she was awake and coherent. James made himself follow procedure and ask her some questions, ignoring every fiber in his body that wanted to ask her about the curse. He was her Killian and he couldn't even speak to her about it.

So he force Mary Margaret and David out of the room, pulled his chair as close as he could to her side, and prepared to take notes.

He stared at Emma, at the cuts on her face and bruises on her arms.

Terror struck him anew.

She could have died.

The lovely, wonderful, kind human being could easily not be here today.

Then they'd never–

Then she'd never–

And Henry–

She's alive god damnit, he reminded himself boring into her green eyes.

Emma must have read his emotions in his expressions because she reached a hand out and laid it on his arm. "Jones," she said softly, "You need to do your job."

His hand ached in protest when he moved to do just that. He hadn't realized how tightly he had been holding his pen. "You're right… I just–" He sat his pen aside and held her hand, "Emma I was so scared. I… I can't lose you."

She moved the hand not in his to cup his cheek. The trimmed scruff that he normally kept had grown out during the past few days. Gently, she stroked it with the tips of her fingers as he leaned into her touched, being reassured of her life through the comforting gesture. She smiled at him, it was sleepy with a hint of pain killer behind it. "I always knew you'd find me."

"Emma I–"

Her hand fell away. "Shhhhh," she told him, sorrow filling her face and tears pooling in her eyes as she looked away. "I don't want to have this conversation with you. Not right now."

He knew what she meant and understood now the sadness that always seemed to cling to her. I don't want to have this conversation with James. Mary Margaret was right. The past few months had been torture for her.

He cleared his throat and decided it was time to do his job. Quietly he prayed that Emma's misery would soon be over. "Could you tell me what happened?"

Emma gave a breathless laugh and even he could hear the double question. What happened to us?

She told him about Jefferson tricking her and drugging her. How she awoke tied up in his living room and stupidly made the decision to investigate instead of leave.

Mercifully he didn't comment. He knew why she did it.

He also didn't comment when her breath hitched and she fisted her bed sheets in her hands as she rushed over Ingrid to move on to the top hats. He quietly took notes throughout her tale. He thought that this part would have been the most difficult for her, but she only faltered when Ingrid was involved and knew the most difficult question had yet to come.

But come it must.

"Emma, this Ingrid lady is how we found you. We went into your past in case there was some loose end we didn't know about and found Ingrid. She was your last foster mother before you ran away. And she disappeared not too long after you did. Emma, I need you to tell me what happened."

She wouldn't look at him. "It's nothing," she gritted out.

"You know better than anyone that trauma is not nothing."

Emma glared daggers at her bed sheets. He was right and she knew it.

A nurse came in then to deliver lunch. "Good dessert today. Everybody is getting an apple turnover." Emma took the brief interruption to gather her thoughts and enjoy the aroma of baked apples and cinnamon coming from the apple turnover on the tray.

Maybe it was the drugs that made her be completely honest. Maybe it was the sadness. Maybe it was the fact that she felt like she was closer to Killian now than she had ever been in the last ten years. "Made me think she loved me. Ingrid took me to a fair. It was the first time I'd ever been to one. We played games, ate food, had the time of our life. I...uh… I saw a manilla envelope in her bag and thought she was just giving me a good send off, that I was being sent back to the orphanage. I was fifteen and thought that she was my best chance. She made herself seem like she was. I started to freak out, but it turns out that they were adoption papers. Or Ingrid said they were. And that she was going to sign them that night.

"Well… night came. We were walking home, laughing and eating ice cream. We stopped in the middle of the street. She told me how much she loved me, that we were going to be a family. And uh, uh, she told how she had lost her family in a terrible accident. She said then that that wouldn't happen again with me, because I had magic. I–" Emma let out a sad, little laugh, "I remember making a comment about Harry Potter. That she was crazy and couldn't live with her. She grabbed me then, and I guess…"

"You guess what, Emma?" James' voice was soft, his hand held Emma's, rubbing small, comforting circles with his thumb on it.

"I guess she paid the guy. Paid him to wait until she had me in the middle of the street before he tried to run me over. She thought I needed my own horrible accident to awake my magic, or whatever. I remember the car. I remember it hitting me. But I mostly remember the pavement afterwards. I remember hitting it and rolling on top of it. I remember getting it under my feet and making sure it stayed there as I ran away. I ran to the house and took my stuff, shoving past other kids that were there. I was gone before Ingrid could catch me.

"I was too scared to go to the hospital. Too scared to catch a bus in the city. I thought she would alert people about me, that she would look for me. But maybe she didn't. Maybe she ran just as fast I did."

She got quiet then and pulled her hand away from James', placing it in her own on her lap before she continued. "I was alone, it's the only reason I can think of that explains me being able to run away then. I wasn't much better off then than I am now, maybe the guy was going slower than she did. I don't know. I don't know why I'm still here. I shouldn't be. God, there are so many reasons why I shouldn't be."

James tried to offer some kind of comfort. "Emma, survivor's guilt–"

Emma didn't, couldn't listen to him. "I have spent the last thirteen years of my life running away from that woman and it turns out I only ended up running towards her. She's been waiting for me, here, in Storybrooke, this entire time." Emma's voice was thick, her eyes began to overflow. James moved to sit on the edge of the bed and Emma turned, tucking her face into his side as he draped an arm around her. A muffled, "That's terrifying," were the last words spoken in the room for a while as they held each other.

James didn't ask any more questions.

Mary Margaret and David were allowed to come back in an hour later with Henry in tow. Emma had eaten a bit of her lunch but had left the apple turnover untouched and the boy eyed it with interest.

"That came with your lunch?"

"Yeah, it came with everyone's. Do you want it?"

Henry debated the apple turnover for a moment before shrugging his shoulders, stepping forward, and taking a massive bite of the pastry.

"Henry! HENRY!" Emma cried when he fell to the floor.

Someone called for the nurses, but Emma didn't know who. All of her attention was on her son as she scrambled out of bed and to his side. "Henry, can you hear me? Come on, Henry! Wake up, please. Come on, Henry. Come on." She fought off Mary Margaret and David when they tried to pull her away, eventually responding to James' arms that wrapped around her middle to pick her up and away from Henry. That didn't stop her from fighting off everyone that tried to stop her from following her child down the hallway though.

Damn her injuries and damn them all for trying to stop her.

A another nurse tried to stop her, "Ma'am, let me take you back to your room. We'll take care of Henry." She made to grab Emma, but James got between them; Emma was injured and he didn't want a forceful medical staff making her injuries worse. And just like Emma, he was dead set to follow Henry to Hell if he had to.

"There's no pupil response. What happened? Did he fall? Hit his head?" Whale asked over the bustle of nurses busing themselves over Henry.

Mary Margaret shoved the apple turnover at Whale. "He ate this."

"His airway is clear. Did he vomit? Any convulsion?"

Mary Margaret, David, and James told him what happened, that Emma was given an apple turnover but Henry wanted to eat it. When he did he just collapsed.

"Apple turnover? We don't serve apple turnovers in the hospital."

Apple, Emma thought in numb silence, Snow White and the poisoned apple. The Evil Queen.

Regina.

"It's poison." Whale stared at Emma, not disregarding her theory. She kept talking, "The turnover was for me. Someone was trying to poison me, but they got Henry instead."

Regina, Emma was seething mad.

"There are no signs of neurotoxins though, but we'll run the tests for arsenic, or-"

"There's no point," Emma cut him off. "It isn't something you can test for." Magic. "Right now, Dr. Whale, just stabilize him because he's slipping away while I fix this."

And for some reason that Whale couldn't explain, he did exactly that. Rather than follow all reason and go with his medical training, his instincts told him that Emma was on the right track. They just needed to give Henry time.

"Where's my son?!" right on time Regina's voice came calling down the hallway.

Emma broke away from the group and marched towards her, slamming Regina against the wall. Her ribs screamed in protest.

"Emma!" Mary Margaret called after her.

"You did this." She seethed.

"What the Hell are you doing? Stop this! My son's-"

"Is dying because of you! He ate the apple turnover you sent me!"

Horror struck the Queen's face, "What? It was meant for you!"

"What the fuck do I need to do to fix this?"

"You can't! I can't!" God damn useless then, Emma shoved her against the wall again. They were gathering a crowd, and yet no one stepped forward to stop them.

"Because there's no fucking magic here. I know that!"

"I brought it here from over there, the magic is going to be unpredictable."

Emma stared at Regina hard then, testing her next words in her mind before speaking them outloud. It felt right. "And the best person to consult on it is Gold, right?"

"How do you-" Regina started to ask, but stopped when Emma shook her violently.

"It's Gold, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay." Emma gave Regina one last shove before walking back to her room to change. She called over her shoulder, "James, arrest Regina! David, stay with Henry! Mary Margaret, with me!"

There was too much at stake for them to try to question her.