Chapter 7

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

"Are you sure you can handle this?" Emma asked as she looked between Mary Margaret and David.

They wanted to see Henry and they had been trying to reassure Emma that they could handle seeing their grandson. It wasn't that Emma didn't think they were capable of handling the situation. What she was worried about was Henry's reaction to seeing them. Specifically to seeing Mary Margaret pregnant.

Something very odd about her memories was that she couldn't recall how old Mary Margaret looked. She recalled remembering how she often thought that Regina's mother looked very young for her age. But that was it.

It physically shouldn't have been possible for Mary Margaret or David to be Regina's parents. At least with how young they were in the fake memories. But it looked like the spell had maintained a sense of acceptance to the abnormality or somehow worked around that. But Emma still could only recall Mary Margaret and David as they looked now in both sets of memories.

The spell's sense of acceptance would probably fail when Henry saw just how far along Mary Margaret was. Not that it was impossible for a woman in her fifties to have a child but Mary Margaret didn't look older than thirty. The more Emma thought about how Mary Margaret had looked in her memories she couldn't really say for certain if that were true.

Emma rubbed at her head, all of this continued to leave her with a splitting head ache and she wasn't under the effects of the spell anymore. But she recalled how strong it had gotten when she crossed the town line. If it was that strong for Henry the more questions he asked himself about things that didn't logically make sense, the more the spell was going to try and compensate. Now that they were back in Storybrooke Emma wasn't sure how it would do that.

"Emma, we can handle this." David promised as he touched her shoulder and waited a moment before stepping around her. He made his way into Granny's Inn and Mary Margaret followed him. Emma signed heavily, she knew this wasn't a good idea but her parents never seemed to think she was capable of making sound decisions.

"David. Snow…what are you two doing here?' Ruby asked, putting herself between her friends and the doorway that'd lead to the living room.

Emma stepped into the Inn, surprised to see Ruby holding her arms back to keep David from moving forward. "I really don't think it's a good idea that you see him right now. He's not feeling well."

"If he's not feeling well then we can help him."

Ruby stared over Snow's shoulder and met Emma's eyes. The werewolf's worry was plain.

"What's wrong with him?" Emma asked as she pushed past her parents.

"He's been having headaches all day. He was laying down before but he woke up about an hour ago. After breakfast he got sick. I was just about to call you. Ashlee's in with him right now."

"Why can Ashlee see him but we can't?" Mary Margaret asked, becoming frustrated with her friend. It had taken her and David nearly an hour to convince Emma that they could handle seeing Henry as he was. They would be sensitive to what he remembered. They knew the parts they would have to play. They had phone conferenced with Dr. Hopper before they'd left the apartment. Together they had all come up with a physically capable and plausible excuse for why Regina would not recall who Henry was and why Emma and Henry had been kept away from her for so long.

Leave it to her parents to want to work out the entire back story before she had even seen Regina. It left Regina with little choice in the matter, but Emma didn't say another way around this. Henry remembered Regina. Regina would remember Henry, but they wouldn't share the same memories. And there in lie the problem. Henry would want to be close to Regina—or so Emma assumed. For all she knew Henry could react negatively to seeing Regina and want nothing to do with her. A negative reaction by Henry would further complicate matters, but also make this back story valuable to them all in an effort to placate him while he was suffering from the effects of this spell.

That didn't mean Emma was comfortable lying to Henry. Or testing out their theories on him when he was already fragile enough.

"He's our grandson." David used that fact as if it would guarantee them entry. But Ruby didn't move and she was very capable of holding David back, even pushing him back a few steps to keep him out of the room.

"And he's my son." Emma challenged David with a look. "I'm going to check on him, see what's up. If he's okay to see you, then you can. If I don't think he's capable of it, then you don't." There would be no compromises. "Keep them here, or outside if you can manage it." Emma whispered to Ruby as she passed her friend, thanking her by squeezing her shoulder.

"This is ridiculous! He's our family."

Ruby sighed, a little tired of David's age old defense, "Yeah, and Emma left him with me to look after because right now, whether your family or not, you'll hurt him more if he sees you. Especially you, Snow." Ruby sounded contrite when she spoke to Snow, her eyes moving to her friend's stomach.

"He remembers you." Snow held onto David's shoulder with one hand as the other covered her stomach, they didn't need to be fighting with each other. And she knew how wound up David already was from the 'conversation' they'd had with Emma.

"Yes. He does. And that isn't hurting him?"

"No, because he remembers me as I was for real. He just thinks that I worked at the diner with Emma too. Otherwise most of his memories of me match up. Same with Ashlee. With you…it's more complicated. He thinks you're supposed to be in your late fifties and for any kid, his grandparents having a baby is a little…weird." Ruby attempted to be as gentle as possible in breaking that news to them. "Same with the older sibling."

"David, why don't we step outside for a little while, okay?" Snow gently guided her husband towards the door, offering Ruby a small sad smile as she went.

Ruby sighed with relief. She really didn't want to get into a fist fight with her friend.

"Thank you." Emma said from behind Ruby.

"No problem." Ruby tried to play it off.

"It's not just no problem. So thank you. Thank you for defending Henry."

Ruby looked over her shoulder at Emma as her friend came to stand beside her.

She nodded in acceptance of the thanks, "How's he doing?"

Emma stood beside Ruby with a long sigh. "He's doing alright. But I don't want to tempt fate too much. But he's getting restless. He wants to get out of here and he wants answers. The same answers that I was looking for not twelve hours ago."

"You think he can handle seeing them?"

"I think that he's going to see them sooner or later. It might as well be in a controlled setting."

"It's your choice."

Emma smiled softly at Ruby. She wondered sometimes how Ruby and Snow could be friends when they were so different. Ruby understood the world in ways that Snow refused to allow herself. She was capable of it, but she had refused to see it that way for a very long time. Emma liked to think that back in Neverland she had finally started to accept the world as it really was, not how she wanted it to be. Too bad that acceptance didn't extend to the realization that she and David weren't entitled to everything they thought they were.

"You're still mad at them." Ruby offhandedly commented. Giving Emma moment to talk to her if she wanted it. But Emma also knew that if she wasn't ready Ruby would let it go. She'd just bring it up again another time, giving Emma another chance to talk about it.

If Emma had learned anything from those sessions with Dr. Diggs, it was that talking about what she was feeling actually did help things. It didn't make everything better, but it made her feel better.

"It's hard not to be mad at them again. Until last night I thought that I'd been abandoned and my mother was a con artist drug addict who was only in my life because it suited her. Sometimes I feel like it's the same for them. That they only want me in their life when it suits them, when they need me. But once they don't need me anymore, they'll be happy to see me off again." With this new baby they won't need her around anymore.

They'd be too busy raising him or her to have time for her unless there was some evil force that she was destined to stop. Usually it was the second child born to a monarch that was cast aside in the shadows of their older sibling because they were never going to rule. In this case Emma knew that wouldn't be the case. Her brother or sister would be raised to take the throne that Emma didn't want, and be dotted upon like she never had been. And she was jealous and bitter. But she also had her own son and a life of her own that didn't need to include her parents.

So, when the time came she would happily let them have their happy ending with their new baby. She just hoped she could have her own happy ending as well. Was it really that hard to believe that she deserved it just as much as they did?

Ruby turned fully to Emma, "That's not how they feel."

"No." Emma shook her head, she knew that's not how they felt, but it was how they acted from her perspective. "But it's how I feel. And that's just as important." Emma's smile disappeared as she stepped away from Ruby and went to the door to get her parents. It was time to get this over with.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

To say that Henry was surprised to see Mary Margaret and David was an understatement. He hadn't expected them to be here. He almost forgot that they hadn't been calling or speaking to them for almost twelve months when he stood to hug them. His surprise at seeing them was explicated when he realized that Mary Margaret was pregnant.

Henry had looked at Emma for help and clarification. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond to something like this. When he saw her placating smile and nod he figured it was okay to be unsure about it. He still hugged her, he just did so reservedly.

They talked at Granny's Inn for a little while before it was decided that they would all get brunch together at the diner. Ruby had phoned Granny already and the matron told Ruby she had been spreading word of Emma and Henry's return all morning. She was also as stern as she could be about how everyone had to can their talk of magic as Henry's memory wasn't what it should be. So all her patrons would all have to can talk of magic when and if Henry showed up. It was better to have the initial reaction of Emma and Henry's return over before they ever showed up, get the shock out of the way.

Emma walked beside Henry, following David and Mary Margaret to the diner. She was keeping her eye on Henry to make sure he was okay, really okay. Ruby had gone in ahead of them as Granny needed all hands on deck for the lunch rush.

Emma was surprised Henry wasn't having as strong of a reaction to Mary Margaret and David as she expected.

"Is Gran going to be okay having a baby at her age?" Henry asked, his eyes watching Mary Margaret from behind.

Emma looked a little taken aback. "Why would you ask?"

"Well she's in her late fifties and she has more grey hair than the last time we saw her. I'm just worried, you know?" Henry was sure to keep his voice low so his grandparents didn't hear him.

Emma squinted as she looked at Mary Margaret from behind. There wasn't a single grey hair on her head. She looked between Henry and Mary Margaret a few times before she stopped Henry, letting David and Mary Margaret continue ahead of them. "She has more you think?"

"Well yeah. It used to only be a little grey, you know, salt and peppered hair. Now it's kind of just greyish white."

The person that Henry was seeing when he looked at Mary Margaret wasn't actually Mary Margaret. Not the Mary Margaret she was seeing. Maybe it was because she now knew what Mary Margaret actually looked like that she thought she'd always appeared younger in her previous memories.

That had to mean something too didn't it? Her memories, it was like they were blending together. What that meant, Emma didn't really know. But she knew who she'd have to ask about it.

"She must not be dying it." Emma commented as lamely as she could, unable to think of anything else to say. Emma cupped Henry's cheek, "She's going to be fine."

He nodded his head once, hiding his tears as best he could. The sight of the tears allowing Emma to understand the depth of his worry. Emma hugged him to her side with one arm and tried to ignore how everyone they saw on the street seemed to be focusing in on them. Their whispers starting after they'd passed. Emma really did hate living in a small town. There was never any privacy and everyone knew everyone else's business.

"If they're here…why haven't they helped mom?" Henry asked of Emma when they started walking down the street once again.

Emma cringed as she thought of Regina and stared at Henry. His question was founded. "There's something that I have to tell you about your mom, Henry." Emma spoke softly as they reached the fence just outside of Granny's.

Henry's eyes widened and he started shaking his head as he took one step away from Emma. "No, no…she's not." He swallowed thickly. "She's not dead is she?"

Emma's mouth parted on its own, "No! No, oh god no Henry. That's not what I was…no. That's not it." Emma felt her heart, realizing it had started to pound dangerously against her chest at the thought of losing Regina to death on top of everything else. "She's alive. God she's alive. I'm sorry." Emma wasn't sure if she was apologizing to herself or him. "That's…not it exactly. Your mom, you know how I was having trouble with my memories?"

"Yeah…" He refrained from saying how he was starting to have trouble with his own. Maybe hoping she was about to give him answers as to why that was.

"Your mom is having trouble with hers. See, she has different memories than we do." Emma cringed internally as she tried to explain this. "Something happened to her when she left that night when we had a fight. She slipped into something that took her away from us." Like the curse, so she wasn't lying. She had to word this carefully so Henry's own lie detecting ability didn't start firing. "It happens sometimes. Like when people fall into a coma and wake up. Sometimes they don't remember life the way it actually happened. Or their former lives at all."

"Mom was in a coma?!" Henry's eyes were wide as saucers. His palms getting sweaty.

"I'm going about this all wrong…I'm sorry. Henry. Let's try this again okay?" Emma growled to herself as she tried to calm herself down and explain to Henry the lie that Mary Margaret had helped her concoct with the help of Dr. Hopper who they'd had on speaker phone. "Here, let's sit down for a moment okay?"

Henry nodded his head and went to sit at the outdoor table with Emma.

"So she has different memories…." Henry prompted.

"It's a type of amnesia like disorder." All the brain storming that Mary Margaret and Archie had done together was being wasted with her having to explain this to Henry. She was no doctor and to be honest she wasn't very sure this would work. But she hoped it would. Telling Henry about this dissociative fugue would solve some problems he would have with seeing Regina walking around as if everything were fine when his whole world was falling apart.

They came here thinking that someone was holding Regina here against her will. Although that was true, someone was keeping the people of Storybrooke here, the life Henry remembered with Regina wasn't actually real. And when he confronted Regina there needed to be a plausible explanation for why his mother didn't recall their lives together.

"What? Was she in some kind of accident or something? How could she just get this amnesia like disorder?" Henry was smart, his best class was science, but he had never learned about disorders of the brain. He was only a freshman in high school. He wouldn't take psychology until Junior year. What little he knew about psychological disorder he knew about from the research he had done about Emma's PTSD. He would need to look up this disorder now.

"It wasn't…not exactly, kid. Sometimes extreme sources of stress and trauma can cause this. It's called dissociative fugue disorder. It's very rare. It causes people to start to wander away from their homes. Sometimes really far away and forget about their old lives. They look normal. Like nothing is wrong, but their brain has created a new life for them. A new identity."

"So mom isn't mom anymore? Does she even know her name?" Henry asked, feeling his pulse quicken. How could his mom forget their lives? How could she forget him?

"Henry, she remembers her name. She just doesn't remember us the way we remember her."

Wait, that meant that his mom remembered him, but didn't? How was that possible? "I don't understand."

Emma sighed, "I know, I don't really understand either, buddy. But the reason why your grandparents didn't tell us she was here was because it was better for her that we not be here. When two sets of memories collide it's very hard on someone." Like how hard it was on her right now. But she was making it work, because she had no choice. But she knew if this wasn't a do or die type of situation she might be holed up in a bar somewhere drinking away her problems because she couldn't tell which emotions were real and which were fake.

"So, they were keeping her here?" Henry asked, peering over his shoulder into the diner where he saw them waiting at a table.

"It wasn't exactly like that Henry."

"Then what was it like?" Henry's temper got the better of him. "Why couldn't they at least tell us why she was gone? I spent so much time hating her. But it wasn't even her fault. If what you're saying isn't a total pile of crap then she couldn't help it. She couldn't help being away from us and I hated her. I wished that she would be in as much pain as we were and…it's not fair." Henry's voice broke as he sank back into his seat. Emma went over to him and hugged him close to her. "It's not fair…"

"No, it's not fair. But it's no ones fault either. People make mistakes Henry. They do what they think is best for others. And there are consequences and sometimes there are innocent people who get hurt."

Henry cried against Emma's shoulder, uncaring that people could see him doing so. Emma held onto Henry tightly and let him burry his head against her shoulder. The touch of his tears on her skin made her heart ache. She wasn't good at comforting Henry when he got like this. She wasn't very adept at sharing emotions, but she was getting better. It was a slow process though.

When Henry calmed down, he slowly leaned away from Emma and wiped at his nose with the back of his sleeve. Emma didn't bother to ask if he was okay. She knew he wasn't. He was thirteen years old and Emma hated that she had to lie to him about what was going on. The only consolation to all of this is if it would keep him healthy and safe until she could give him back his old memories.

"Come on, kid. Let's get you washed up a little. Eat something and then go back to Granny's to rest."

"Okay." Henry's movements were sluggish as he stood up. He kept his head down turned as he walked into Granny's. He walked right passed the table Mary Margaret and David had grabbed. Emma followed him in and noticed how the noise around the diner halted as she stepped inside. All eyes were either on her or Henry. Sighing, she realized this was going to happen for a while.

"Is he okay?" Mary Margaret whispered the question as Emma stood in front of the table.

"He will be. I told him about the dissociative fugue thing." Emma shook her head at the mere title of the disorder. "He took it well considering."

David was about to say something but was interrupted by a phone call. As soon as he stood up to take the call Emma's phone rang as well. She looked apologetically at Snow before she stepped outside to take her phone call as well.

It was as Mary Margaret was sitting alone that she was approached by Zelena. The red headed woman was quick to make herself known to the mother to be. Smiling ruefully as she gushed over meeting someone as famous as Snow White. She mentioned her job as a midwife in the past and realized how interested Snow became immediately. She saw the young boy coming back and made a quick exit, leaving Mary Margaret her number written on a napkin.

Snow looked at it and watched Zelena leave the diner, bumping into Emma on her way out. Emma apologized even though it wasn't her fault and met Zelena's eyes as the woman ducked her head and left without a word. Odd, but not uncommon. People didn't know how to talk to her; thinking her to be a Princess—the daughter of the rightful King and Queen.

Shaking off the encounter that took less than two minutes, she made it back to the table just in time for Henry to reach it. His face was less red now that he'd splashed some water on it.

"I, that was Killian. I have to go." She didn't want to, but he had mentioned that there was some kind of attack by another flying monkey very close to Regina's house. What was worrying Hook and the patrols that were working around the clock these days, was that none of the attacks had happened in the middle of the day. Until now. Something was up, and Emma felt in the pit of her stomach that it wasn't good.

Apparently no one here in Storybrooke had known that it was flying monkeys that were taking the missing people. Emma had described the beast that had come flying at her in New York in as great detail as she could, insisting that she did in fact know what she was saying when she told her parents that the beasts they were hunting were flying monkeys. Like from the freaking Wizard of Oz.

"Is everything alright?" Snow asked, knowing something had happened if both Emma and David had been called.

"I have to check it out before I can really answer that." Emma gave her attention to Henry. "Will you be okay here for a little while?" Emma didn't really want to leave Henry just yet. But she needed to make sure that Regina was okay. And it was probably time that the older woman knew that she and Henry were back in town before she found out from someone else.

Henry looked a little uncomfortable at the idea of staying with Mary Margaret but nodded his head. "Yeah, I'll just go back to Granny's to lay down after we eat. Should I bring anything back with me?" He asked, knowing his mom probably hadn't eaten since last night.

"I'll be okay."

"Ma…" Henry chided, "When was the last time you ate?"

"I had some cereal before." She hadn't really been able to get herself to eat much of anything since last night. And even then she'd had a hard time keeping it down.

"That's not nearly enough. You need to eat more." Mary Margaret stated from her seat.

"I'll pick something up on my way back to the Inn, okay?" The question was directed at Henry, but both Henry and Mary Margaret nodded in ascent.

Emma looked at Mary Margaret, hoping that her mother could read her mind and the thoughts she was trying to make very clear. 'Take care of my son.' Mary Margaret understood and tried to convey that she would.

"Go on. Henry and I have some catching up to do." She waved Emma away, recognizing the longer Emma stayed with them the more she'd want to stay with her son.

Emma met Henry's eyes and stepped forward to kiss him on the forehead, "You need anything you call me. Okay. Anything."

"I will." He promised.

After saying goodbye again she left the diner. She saw David was still on the phone with whomever he was talking to. "Hey, David. Need a ride to Mifflin street?"

David disconnected his call and looked at Emma in surprise, "How did you know?"

Emma wiggled her own cellphone in front of him. "You're not the only one that gets phone calls when things go wrong. I mean, I am the Sherriff around here aren't I?'

David couldn't help but smile, "Yes, yes you are."

"Come on, the Bug's parked just around the block."

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

When David and Emma arrived at the scene of the abduction there were already several people around. Mother Superior, or Blue as she went by these days, was there with a few other fairies. Leroy and a tall rotund man that Emma had never met were talking together. Hook was standing off to the side with Mr. Smee.

David went to talk with Leroy and the man Emma was unfamiliar with while she walked towards Killian. "What happened?"

"Apparently there were several break ins on this block. One of the break ins resorted in an abduction." Hook answered as he looked around at the people huddled inside their gates and many people looking out into the street from their homes.

"The people around here are a little frightened. Before today there haven't been targeted attacks like this. And not during the day." Smee offered as he bowed his head a little to Emma. "Mr. Smee at your service."

None of this sat right with her. She looked around at all the commotion and met Hook's eyes. Distraction. This was all a distraction.

Just up the road from all these houses and the sight of the abduction was Regina's house.

"Regina…" Emma breathed out the woman's name and took off at a run towards 108 Mifflin street. Praying that she would find Regina safe and sound in her own home, completely annoyed at the disturbance Emma was about to cause.

'Please….' Emma thought desperately as she felt her heart race against her rib cage beneath her chest. 'Please be okay. Please.'

End Chapter Seven