I actually do have two chapters for today! I kinda blew right through them, so it was either one ridiculously long chapter or chunking it into two parts which made a lot more sense and flowed better. So yay for me keeping promises! Ellie, this is for you. :D
11/29/22 Edit: Just more of me cleaning up my act. Very few changes are really happening with these early chapters, just deleting a few things that ran long, editing some typo's and grammar that I missed the first time. No major rocking of the boat.
October 24, 2011 Continued
"How do you want to do this?" Ada asks as they look over at Henry's castle, the outline of the boy sitting on it visible through the wooden tiers.
"I'll talk to him," Emma sighs, "One-on-one. Maybe I can get through to him."
"What are you going to try to convince him of?" Ada asks, examining her sister out of the corner of her eye.
Emma stalls for a moment, unsure. "Well, that he should go home."
"Should he?" Emma turns to Ada in shock, mouth open, but the redhead continues before Emma can protest, "I just, I don't know, Emma. This whole thing is really messy. It's one thing to wonder about your bio parents, it's another thing entirely to steal a teacher's credit card, run away from home, and hop a bus by yourself at ten years old to find your bio mom and beg her to save you. That's…pretty extreme. I have to wonder- he's a kid that, despite everything, seems pretty sweet and well-adjusted enough. I mean, sure, he's got the fairytale thing, but maybe that's his way of dealing. So if he's willing to go as far as he has to find you- what exactly is he running from? It's usually good policy not to make a kid go back to a home they don't want to be in."
"You think she's that bad?" Emma asks her sister, shifting slightly on her feet.
"Do you?"
Emma sighs and rubs her forehead at the headache that's coming back. "A, I don't know what to think. She hasn't lied to me yet," Emma noticed Ada shift uncomfortably next to her. "A? What's up? There's something you're not saying."
"I didn't want to say anything because it's all already so complicated and Emma it was your birthday and I wanted everything to be perfect for you and then it all just spiraled so out of control and-"
"Ada," Emma breaks her sister out of her rambling, "Tell me."
"She gives me the prickings. Bad," Ada confesses in a rush.
"How bad?"
"Emma- my prickings aren't perfect or infallible-"
"How bad?" Emma asks again, turning to look in Ada's eyes, demanding the truth.
Ada swallows, "Like I've swallowed a bucket of scorpions and they're fighting their way back up. I want to barf every time she comes into the room, that's why I felt so sick when we dropped Henry off last night."
Emma is visibly worried. And turns to look at Henry. "I don't have any legal rights to him," she reminds herself and her friend both.
"But he has a right. He has a right to his best chance, and Emma, I'm kinda getting the sinking feeling this wasn't it. And I know you are, too."
Emma chose not to respond to that and instead began walking towards Henry, not sure what she could say to her sister without Ada immediately calling her out on lying.
And Emma didn't really want Ada to call her out on lying because then Emma couldn't keep lying to herself.
She climbs up the castle, still not sure what to say, and sits beside the boy she gave up ten years ago. "You left this in my car," she starts with, giving him back his book of fairytales. She never really knew how dangerous those things could be. Emma notices how Henry's gaze is fixed on the clock tower. "Still hasn't moved, huh?"
"I was hoping that when I brought you back, things would change here. That the final battle would begin."
Emma felt tired already, and there was no final battle for her to fight, so she responded, "I'm not fighting any battles, kid."
"Yes, you are," Henry insisted, "You're here because it's your destiny," Emma always hated the idea of destiny- that she had no control of her fate, "You're going to bring back the happy endings."
No pressure there, "Kid, that's a lot for just one person," she says, reminded of what Ada had said about what Henry might be running from, "Especially when I have to go back to Boston. I've got a life there, and so does Ada. We're not staying."
"You don't have to be hostile," Henry tells her, totally calm in the face of her trying to disentangle his emotions from her- she wasn't the type of person you should depend on. She sure as hell was no hero. "I know you like me, I can tell. You're just- pushing me away because I make you feel guilty." The kid clearly spends too much time with that shrink, is all Emma can think as Henry continues, "It's okay. I know why you gave me away. You wanted to give me my best chance."
The breath is knocked out of her at the boy's astuteness. It reminds her of how Ada sometimes reads her like a book, except this kid is pushing and Ada never does. Still, the comparison amuses her a little as she asks, "How do you know that?"
"The same reason Snow White gave you away," he answers, and the similarities she felt he shared with her sister are at an end, and her patience frays.
"Listen to me, kid," she instructs, "I am not in any book. I'm a real person. And I'm no savior. You were right about one thing, though. I wanted you to have your best chance. But it's not with me. C'mon, let's go."
"Please don't take me back there!" Henry begs, and Emma can hear Ada's voice in her head "what exactly is he running from?" as her long-lost son continues to plea with her, "Just stay with me for one week, that's all I ask! One week, and you'll see I'm not crazy."
Can't get attached can't stay not enough I'm never enough not enough you'll only disappoint him you'll only fail him he deserves more not enough never enough "I have to get you back to your mom," Emma grounds out.
"You don't know what it's like with her. My life sucks!" Henry screams at her back. This is too much.
"Oh, you wanna know what sucking is?" she retorts, feeling anger licking up her insides with a red hot flame and reminding her of every time someone left her, "Being left abandoned on the side of a freeway; my parents didn't even bother to drop me off at a hospital!" she's seeing it playing out behind her eyes- Mary Swan telling Emma she can't stay with them any more- Emma hadn't even realized they weren't her biological parents until that day, "I ended up in a foster system and I had a family until I was three but then they had their own kid so they sent me back," she can see all the families who picked someone else; all the foster parents who failed in all the ways someone could fail a child; saw Neal promising her Tallahassee and then felt the cold metal of a handcuff on her wrist; then the same feeling of cold metal around her ankle as she remembers labor, frightening, painful, labor, totally alone, knowing that this time, she was doing the leaving, leaving before she ruined the one good thing she's done in her life; and then, like a flash, the anger is gone. Soothed and calmed as she remembers a voice shouting out on a subway, a second glass of wine on a coffee table, someone who looks out for her when she gets sick and has never, will never leave.
Emma takes a deep breath and tries to pull herself back into the present, where this is a little boy who looks so much like the man who broke her and acts so much like the sister who helped put her back together again stares at her and asks her to stay, "Look. Your mom is trying her best. I know it's hard. And I know sometimes you think she doesn't love you. But at least she wants you."
"Your parents didn't leave you on the side of the freeway; that's just where you came through!" Henry shouts, as if that makes it all make sense.
"What?" is all the blonde can think to say.
"The wardrobe," he reminds her, "When you went through the wardrobe you appeared on the side of the street. Your parents were trying to save you from the curse."
Emma's too tired, too drained, to keep up with this, and she doesn't want to shout at this boy, doesn't want him to realize that life is a lot crueler than fairytales, and doesn't want all her broken jagged edges to cut him in all his sweet, innocent, perfection. "Sure they were. C'mon, Henry," and the boy slips his hand into hers and she tries not to let her heart squeeze at that feeling as she leads him over to Ada and the bug.
She looks up at her sister, who waits so patiently by the yellow bug, and tries to memorize the feeling of security that washes over her at the sight of the red hair, colorful dress, and high heels that she always associates with her sister.
Ada bends down slightly, trying not to lose her balance on the heels, to gaze into Henry's eyes.
"Hey, kiddo, how ya doin'?" she asks.
"I'm alright," Henry replies with a shrug, "But the clock still isn't moving."
"Well," Ada says, "Maybe it just needs a little time to sort itself out."
The two nod at each other, finishing the cryptic exchange as Ada ushers Henry into the backseat of the bug and then takes her own place in the passenger seat.
Emma decides it was better not to ask.
Ada stands by the bug as Emma escorts Henry back into the mayor's house.
She was going to have to have a talk with that boy, she decides, and soon. Because he may have gotten adopted, but Ada was not convinced he was at all safe. It was also about time she do some research into what exactly Emma's rights are and what Miss Mill's responsibilities are. Because that boy- she wasn't entirely sure he was safe. And while she wasn't exactly concerned about Evil Queens, she was concerned about emotional abuse.
It was something she had experienced at the hands of various foster families, sometimes side-by-side with physical abuse, and she promised herself a long time ago that she would never turn her back on a kid in a similar position.
When the two are half-way up the walk, the door opens and the Mayor stands there. Emma lets Henry dash the rest of the way on his own- he blows past his adoptive mother, and Miss Mills turns to Emma.
They begin to chat, Ada can't quite hear what they're saying but then Miss Mills begins to shout.
"No. You don't get to speak," Ada straightens up at that- she doesn't care if this woman makes her want to puck all over her Jimmy Choos every time she gets close, she will punch her right in the face if she starts those bullying tactics on Emma, "you don't get to do anything. You gave up that right when you tossed him away. Do you know what a closed adoption is? It's what you asked for. You have no legal right to Henry, and you're gonna be held to that. So I suggest you get in your car, and you leave this town. Because if you don't, I will destroy you if it is the last thing I do," Ada's jaw tightens as Mills whispers one final thing to Emma before turning back up the walk and to her mansion.
Oh she did not.
"Do you love him?" Emma's voice comes across clearly as she shouts at the Mayor's turned back.
"What?" the woman repeats incredulously.
"Henry. Do you love him?"
Ada can't hear the mayor's reply, but she does see Emma's face when the blonde turns back to the car. And it is troubled.
"Did she lie?" Ada asks before she can stop herself when Emma is beside her. The blonde doesn't reply, doesn't even look at Ada before getting in the bug. With a sigh, Ada does the same. There's only one thing to do when Emma gets quite like that- and that's wait it out.
But it definitely was not a good sign for Henry. Pulling out her phone, Ada begins googling adoption laws for Arizona.
Well, child adoption laws. com - that seems like a good place to start.
Ada's more than a little horrified by time Emma parks the bug in front of a B&B that evening. She says nothing though, wanting to do more research. She follows her sister into the B&B, which had seen better days. Dust covered the desk with the registry, cobwebs linking pens and various other knick knacks together.
Good god, when was the last time someone visited this town? Weren't there out of town relatives or casual road trippers or something?
"You're out all night," a voice yells from the floor above the two women, "And now you're going out again."
"I should've moved to Boston!" a younger woman retorts as she flounces down the steps, dressed to go clubbing (were there clubs in Storybrooke?), followed by an elderly woman who had registered the complaint.
"I'm sorry that my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the Eastern Seaboard!" Ada's eyebrows raise and she makes a mental note not to mess with the older woman- she's got bite.
"Excuse me?" Emma interrupts before the, no doubt, family drama can continue. "I'd- like a room?"
"Really?" the older woman asks, clearly shocked, both Emma and Ada nod, and the B&B owner springs into action, grabbing a ledger from behind the registry desk, "Would you like a forest view or a square view? Normally there's an upgrade fee for the square, but as the rent is due, I'll wave it."
"Square is fine," Emma says.
"I'll just have the room next to hers," Ada adds.
"Now- names?" the woman continues, filling out the appropriate blanks on the paper.
"Ada Ward."
"Swan. Emma Swan."
"Emma?" comes another voice, and Ada jumps slightly before turning around to look- it's an older man, leaning slightly on a cane, and he reminds her of old mobster movies somehow. Her prickings act up yet again and she's wondering what it is about this town that makes her senses go haywire. "What a lovely name," he tells Emma with a small smile.
"Thanks," the blonde replies, unconcerned.
The B&B owner removes a wad of cash from a draw and holds it out to the man, "It's all here," she informs him.
Ada flinches back as the man reaches past her to grab the money, "Yes, yes. Of course it is, dear," he replies, "Thank you," he says in a way that conveys no gratitude before once again turning to Emma, "Enjoy your stay, Emma. And your friend, too, of course." With a nod at both girls (and was Ada imagining the look of confusion when he saw looked at her?), he departed. Ada felt herself relax minimally as the prickings died down.
"Who's that?" Emma asks.
"Mr. Gold," the young woman is the one who replies, "He owns this place."
"What? The inn?" Emma asks.
"No," the elderly woman informs them, "The town." The pause that ensues gives Ada way too much time to remember every single horror story and Stephen King novel she had read that took place in small town. Fortunately, the older woman breaks her out of her musings by asking "So. How long will you be with us?"
"A week," Emma immediately answers with so much determination that Ada wonders at the significance of that amount of time, "Just a week."
"Great," the owner says, grabbing two keys from the shelves beside her, "Welcome to Storybrooke," she tells the two girls as they both reach out and take them.
They didn't realize it, but at that moment, the clocktower began to move.
