A/N: As always, thank you for your favorites/follows/reviews! This was one of my favorite chapters to write, so I would appreciate any feedback that you might have now that we're seeing more of the other characters. The chapters should get a little longer now, fair warning :) Please review!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Once Upon a Time characters or plot lines, I am just borrowing them. I do not profit from this story in any way, but I sure do feel rich in love when I get reviews lol *hint**hint*


Chapter 10

Happy Halloween

On Halloween night, Emma and Lily were at Granny's diner. After a week had come and gone with no sign of August, the two women decided to remain on in the small, cozy town for awhile longer. Lily still held hope that August would return with all the answers to their questions, but Emma had angrily written him off. In her mind, he was just another false friend who had gotten Lily's hopes up for nothing. At least Emma had never really expected to find her parents. Emma thought she was being incredibly patient about Lily's naive hope that the man who abandoned them so unceremoniously would return.

Emma thought that sticking around three weeks longer than originally planned was more than enough time for August to change his mind and come back. But he hadn't, and Emma and Lily were frustratingly no closer to any answers then when they'd begun their journey. Emma was ready to call this adventure a bust and head back home. It was a point of contention between the two friends. Once again they were at odds, this time with Emma wanting to leave and Lily wanting to stay and wait for August a little while longer.

Halloween, of course, was the perfect evening for a child to go missing. Mary Margaret came rushing into the diner followed by a few other teachers from school. "We can't find Henry again," she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard over the spooky Halloween music Granny was playing for the holiday.

Emma and Lily had only recently learned about about Henry's troubling habit of disappearing from Mary Margaret. She said that he ran away from home perhaps once a month or so. It made Emma worry, thinking about her interaction with the kid previously. She felt sorry for him now knowing Regina was his mother and didn't blame him for going amiss from time to time. God knows I'd throttle him if he was my son and he made me worry like that!

Emma decided to leave with Mary Margaret's search party, and Lily stayed behind at the diner to get sloshed with some of the other patrons already well on their way. Emma broke off from the search party and dipped into Gold's Pawn shop. It was there that she was standing when Regina burst into the shop, out of breath. "Gold! So help me-" she started shouting, but ceased when she saw the curly haired blonde in her midst. "Ms. Swan," she said, dipping her head in acknowledgment. It was that moment that Gold strolled through the curtain from the back room, ornate cane in hand.

"What seems to be troubling you, Madam Mayor?" the mysterious man said in a wheedling tone. "My boy's gone missing! I can't find him anywhere! You need to help me," she reeled off in a shrill voice. "Or so help me," she lowered her voice in a threatening timber, and Emma took a step towards the hostile mayor.

"Don't worry, I'll help you find your son," she said. Her green eyes were wide and her forehead wrinkled in worry. She could feel the panic and dread radiating off the woman before her and wanted to assuage the hostile woman's fears, but could do little to do so.

"Thank you, Ms. Swan," the mayor said, sniffing indignantly. She turned eyes towards Gold once again, "Can I count on your assistance in this task as well, Mr. Gold?" "Of course, Madam Mayor," he said, tight lipped as he went to retrieve his black coat and swung it over his shoulders loosely. "Let us make haste," he quipped, leading the ladies to the door.

*~*~*~* ONCE * UPON * A * TIME *~*~*~*

Hours later, the town had still not seen hide nor hair of the mayor's son Henry. Their search party had extended outside of town and into the forest by now, and Emma was among those in the forest. She recognized the lonely stretch of road she and Lily had rode into town on where they last saw August when she saw the sign up ahead. "LEAVING STORYBROOKE"

As she passed the sign, Emma walked along the road calling out for Henry. "Psst!" She heard a noise off to her left, on the side of the road behind the bushes. As she passed the bushes, the forest trees were tall and closer together, but Emma could just make out the shape of a ten year old boy. "Henry?! Is that you?" she asked, shining her flash light towards the figure. Sure enough, the boy raised his hand to shield his eyes and called out, "Emma?"

"Yeah, it's me, kid," she said, calling to him. "Why don't you come outta there and come back to town?" she asked. She lowered her flashlight and stepped closer to the tree line, not wanting to shout. "Your mom is worried sick, kid."

"She's not my real mom," he said defiantly. He started walking towards Emma, and came to stand in front of her before his next words. "You are," he plainly stated. He looked up at her with a determined look in his eyes and Emma froze. The guileless look on his little face told her he meant her no harm, he was telling the truth.

"I don't have a kid," she dumbly replied, looking into his brown eyes that instantly took her back and made her think of a thief from her past. Someone who had stole her heart. She sucked in a sharp breath, experiencing an emotion so powerful it felt like a blow to her solar plexus. "Did you give up a baby ten years ago?" the little boy asked. "That was me."

Emma's vision turned tunnel like, black at the edges, and she honestly thought she might pass out. "Woah! You okay?!" Henry rushed towards his mother, and Emma held a hand out towards him, pleading him to hold back. "Just a sec," she said, and staggered away in the opposite direction.

She balanced herself with her knees slightly bent and her hands resting on them for support, staring down at the concrete under her feet. She fought to catch her breath, suddenly realizing how close she was to hyperventilating. How she had dreaded the idea of ever seeing the boy that baby came to be! He was like a ghost before her, come back to haunt her. Emma despaired. She thought she had made the right choice in giving him up, but he seemed so miserable and the fact made her heart ache. Was I wrong?

"Don't you see why I had to bring you out here to tell you? They can't leave Storybrooke, but you can." Emma looked up and around, straining her eyes and ears for any sounds of the others. Maybe Henry was right. There had been others in the forest, so how come she could not and had not seen anyone in quite some time? She and Henry were the only ones around for miles. "What're you talking about, kid?"

"We need to get you back into town," she said, turning back around towards Henry. She approached him with a stern face and said, "More importantly, back to your mom." "I won't go," the boy protested. "Not until you hear me out," he said. "I don't know why I'm arguing with you, kid, I'm the grown up and you have to do what I say. I'll just make you go back," she threatened.

"I'll tell them you're the one who kidnapped me," he challenged her. "And they'll believe you, because I'm an outsider and I happen to be your birth mother..." Emma trailed off, putting the pieces together. She narrowed her eyes at her son, impressed with his creativity and wily attitude.

"You're bluffing, kid. You wouldn't do that," she said, sizing the kid up. Henry's face morphed into a huge grin. "Try me," he impishly said. "You're pretty good," Emma said, "but here's the thing. There's not a lot I'm good at in life, but I do have one skill. Call it a super power, but I can always tell when someone is lying to me. And you, kid, are."

She started to grab onto his shoulder and frog march him forward, but he held back and swung out of her grasp on his jacket. "You have to promise to go somewhere with me first," the ten year old bargained. "Uh huh, no way!" Emma cried, already exasperated.

How did she get mixed up in this, standing in front of a kid she had spent the last ten years trying to forget? He was the by product of her brief time with Neal, and she was terrified and astonished to see him standing in front of her. She gave him up, a closed adoption, never to be seen or heard of again because she thought it would be best for him. She wasn't capable of being a mother then, and she wasn't necessarily loving the idea now.

The blonde sighed, knowing when to choose her battles. She threw her hands up in defeat, "Okay! I'll go with you. But then we go straight to your mother's." She started walking back towards town and after a step or two, she looked over her shoulder. "You coming?"

Henry swallowed and bobbed his head in encouragement, following Emma back into town. He loved her long curly blonde hair and thought how pretty his real mother was. She looked young and scared when she saw him. He hoped to change that by showing her what he had seen in his book. She was here to save everyone, even him.

Once they neared town, Henry made them take a detour to a small, abandoned play place on the sand near the docks. He got down on his hands and knees under one of the play things and dug, and when he came back to the bench he'd left Emma to wait for him, his knees and hands were covered in dirt but his face was beaming. He deposited the dusty volume of fairy tale stories on Emma's lap and at first she didn't recognize the book.

As soon as she opened the first page, however, shock was written all over her face. She flipped through the pages and narrowed her eyes in Henry's direction. "Where did you get this?" she asked suspiciously. "I found it! Now do you think you're ready?" the little boy asked. He sat down beside her on the bench, and she looked at him, confused. "Ready for some fairy tales?" she asked, her eyebrow raised.

"They're not just fairy tales, they're true stories. Everything in this book actually happened," Henry proclaimed. "Of course they did," Emma said distractedly. She started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach, having heard this line once before. August had given the boy the book. August knew who Henry was, and still he brought her to this place.

Emma tasted the bile of betrayal at the back of her throat, and distractedly wondered where the writer could be for the thousandth time this month. She always knew he was keeping secrets.

Who knew what you didn't know could hurt so damn much? She thought he was her friend, and instead, he'd brought her to the one place on Earth she was terrified to be; in front of her long lost son, being asked questions. It was only a matter of time before he started asking the hard questions that she wouldn't be able to answer.

Emma clearly didn't look convinced. "Use your super power, see that I'm not lying," Henry urged, looking intently at her face. She smelled like leather and lavender, and Henry decided he liked her scent. Emma darted a searching look his way, and then sighed with exasperation. "Just because you believe something is true doesn't make it so," she said. "That's exactly how it works, you should know better than anyone," Henry said. "Why's that?"

"Because you're in the book," he explained calmly. "Kid, you've got problems," Emma said with a dark little chuckle and Henry lightly quipped, "Yep, and you're gonna fix them." Emma blinked, surprised. This kid obviously did need her help, because what he was saying was totally bizarre.

Even if she was inclined to believe in magic (which she wasn't), she wasn't crazy enough to think she herself was magical. I would know if I had magic, wouldn't I? She could never believe she had fallen out of a story book world, not when this was her life, lead astray by a false friend into a trap with a woman who had broken her heart. She felt anguish that she trusted yet another person she shouldn't have. What did August have to gain by leading her to her lost son?

Suddenly, Emma felt fiercely protective of the kid in front of her. Despite the crazy claims he was making, she was proud to notice he seemed like a smart kid. "How am I supposed to help?" she asked, deciding to play along with the kid.

He was obviously a little disturbed, and who could blame him for retreating into some fairy tale world in order to get away from the reality of living with Regina? "You're here to break the curse, of course!" the ten year old cried enthusiastically, and Emma glanced back towards town, where she could just make out the clock tower through the trees.

"Okay, how am I supposed to do that?" She peered more closely at the clock, and added, "Is it something we can discuss back in town? It's getting late, it's almost... 8:15?" she asked in confusion, squinting at the clock. Henry followed her gaze up to the clock, realizing why she was confused. "That clock hasn't moved my whole life," Henry said, shrugging nonchalantly. "Time is frozen here," he said.

"What?" Emma asked. "The Evil Queen did it with her curse," Henry explained, and Emma nodded along. "Of course, the curse again," she agreed. "Yeah, the Evil Queen sent everyone from the Enchanted Forrest here," he told her. "Wait, you mean an evil queen sent a bunch of fairy tale characters here?" she asked for clarification from her imaginative kid. "Yeah, and now they're trapped here," he confirmed.

"Frozen in time? Stuck in Storybrooke, Maine..." she said slowly, kneeling to look her son right in the eye. "That's what you're going with?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised and her head tilted sympathetically to the left. Henry frowned at her, sensing her skepticism. "It's true!" he proclaimed. "Why doesn't everyone just leave?" she asked. "They can't," Henry said simply. "When they try, bad things happen," he told her.

"Speaking of bad things, let's get you back into town now," she said persuasively. "Everyone is looking for you," she added. Henry hung his head, not wanting to go back home to his mother. He dragged his feet as he went back to his hiding place under the play place and hid his book of stories again.

"Why do you have to bury it?" Emma asked. "I can't risk the evil queen finding it," he said. "I can't keep it at my house. I'm protecting it," he said with a puffed out chest and an enormous sense of pride.

"Why?" Emma asked. "My mom's the Evil Queen, duh," the boy explained. Henry was willing to do whatever he had to in order to help Emma defeat his mother, which left Emma feeling quite confused. Sure she was a pill to swallow, but was Regina really as bad as he made her seem? Henry walked back into town thrilled to actually be walking beside his birth mother. The first person to see them was none other than Dr. Hopper and his dog, Pongo.

"Henry! Where have you been?" his therapist asked, rushing up to the pair. Dr. Hopper was dressed in a non-threatening clown outfit for the holiday, and his big red feet came slapping up the pavement to them with Pongo on his heels. His ensemble was complete with red paint around his mouth and a big, red nose and he wore comical suspenders with a flower attached that probably squirted water, not that Dr. Hopper would ever actually spray anyone since he was so polite. "I'm sorry Archie. I got dared to go into the forest alone by some kids, and I wanted to prove I was brave," Henry lied.

The clown leaned down in front of Henry, and said, "You missed your session today, too. Henry, what have I told you about lying? Giving into one's dark side never accomplishes anything," he warned, which sounded like very heavy material for a ten year old. Emma's eyes widened.

"Oookay," she mumbled uncomfortably, interrupting the two. "I'd better get him home, huh?" she gestured, pointing the direction of the mayor's manor. "Of course, I'll go and let everyone else know," Dr. Hopper said, heading off in the direction of the forest they'd just come from.

Emma leveled Henry with a shrewd look once the therapist was gone. "So he's your shrink, huh?" Emma asked, raising an eyebrow at her troubled kid. "I'm not crazy," he automatically defended himself. "Calm down, kid, I didn't say that," Emma said. "He just doesn't seem cursed. Maybe he's just trying to help you."

"He's the one who needs help," Henry said knowingly. "Because he doesn't know," he explained to Emma. "He doesn't know he's a fairy tale character?" she asked. "None of them remember who they are, it's really sad," the ten year old said.

"Well, who is he supposed to be?" Emma asked gamely. "He's Jiminy Cricket," Henry confidently proclaimed. "Oh yeah, the thing about lying," Emma said, and started walking with Henry up the street to his house. "I should have guessed," she said.

* ~ *~*~*~* ONCE * UPON * A * TIME *~*~*~*~*~*

When they arrived at the mayor's manor, Regina was beside herself with happiness when she flung open the door to reveal Henry standing there. Regina tugged him into a bear hug that made it hard for Emma to believe the kid felt so unloved. "Henry!" she cried. "Where have you been?" She pulled him back far enough to get a look at him.

Henry was dressed like a ninja, black outfit with a blue sash and now with more light, Emma could see what was supposed to be a blue mask tied loosely around his neck, looking more like a limp necklace now. He had a plastic sword tied onto his back, but no candy bag in sight.

"I went to find my real mom!" he cried, and rushed past his mother and Graham in the entrance hall and up the stairs to his blue bedroom. Regina looked shocked, realizing Emma the unwelcome blonde was on her front porch suddenly. "Ms. Swan... You're his birth mother?"

Emma looked guiltily at Regina's barely contained expression of panic and righteous anger. "You're his birth mother, and you're telling me this whole time you've known?!" Regina demanded to know, her voice raising. "Just what are you up to?!"

Graham took a step forward and put his hand on Regina's bare shoulder, and murmured her name, effectively reigning her back into the house where they could speak more in private. She shrugged his hand off impatiently, and her smile was forced when she spoke next. "Why don't you come in Ms. Swan and we'll all talk about this over drinks?" Regina calmly asked, and her offer sounded more like a command.

Emma found herself stepping into the stately manor behind the mayor and sheriff. She followed them into Regina's study, where a felt topped green bar stood near the window and Graham headed straight towards it familiarly. He poured Regina a drink without asking her what she'd have, and poured two tumblers of crown for himself and Emma.

Graham was dressed as Zorro in all black and black boots. The only thing missing from his ensemble was the black hood that he'd discarded on the entrance hall table when things got serious about Henry.

Regina and Emma were dressed in normal clothes, not at all interested in playing at dress up for the holiday. Regina wore a black, sleeveless button up top that cinched at the waist and gray slacks and her lips were a strikingly dark beautiful color. Emma wore her signature red jacket and jeans. "I didn't know," Emma finally admitted, standing uncertainly beside the green felt topped bar. She stared tremulously into Regina's dark, formidable gaze across the room.

Regina was standing rigid leaning against a wood grained book case, and Graham was lounging on the feinting couch in between the two women sipping his drink. "You didn't know he was yours, and yet you've been here for weeks watching him?" Regina asked, her tone strident and accusatory.

Emma floundered, having no explanation whatsoever as to how he ended up in this small town, adopted by such a horrible woman. "I told you Regina, I came here on a case, not to hunt down some kid I gave up," she harshly said. She downed some of her drink, and Regina stared moodily across the room at her blonde adversary. "How did he even find you?" Regina asked.

"I didn't ask," Emma blanched, forgetting to ask such important questions was such a rookie mistake. But then again, she had never been a mom before and wasn't necessarily prepared to be one now.

"When I adopted him, he was only 3 weeks old," Regina said. "Those records were supposed to be sealed," the mayor said to Emma. "It was supposed to be a closed adoption. I was told... the mother," at this she shot a judgmental look Emma's way, "did not want any contact." Emma looked towards the study door, as if guiltily trying to pinpoint Henry's location in the house. "That's right," she confirmed for Regina.

"And the father?" Graham asked. Emma knocked back another drink and simply replied, "There was one." "Do I need to worry about him?" Regina asked, protective like a mother cat of her offspring. "No, he doesn't even know he exists," Emma admitted to both of them.

"Do I need to worry about you?" Regina asked, her eyes narrowing menacingly Emma's way as she sized the blonde up. Nothing was going to get in Regina's way when it came to securing her family's happiness. She was ready to dispose of Ms. Swan without a moment's hesitation if the opportunity arose.

"No, there's nothing to worry about here," Emma said, shrugging her shoulders. "Nothing's changed. I'm not exactly cut out to be a mom," she said.

"Mm. Did I hear something through the grapevine that you and your partner came up empty in your man search?" the mayor inquired, shooting a furtive glance Graham's way. Emma herself had made up the excuse to the sheriff when he got too nosy one day, asking about the ladies' search and their reasons for staying on in Storybrooke. (What he didn't tell Regina was that he spent much of his time interrogating the blonde in a flirtatious banter back an d forth.)

Emma smacked her lips as she finished her drink, and set her empty glass down on the bar. "That's true, the trail went cold," she said. "Then what is keeping you two in Storybrooke, if you don't mind my asking?" Regina asked, and Emma finally started to feel less timid with the alcohol coursing through her veins.

"If you don't mind, Miss Mayor, that's our business," she snarked. Regina visibly bristled at the comment, and set her glass down on the book shelf forcefully. "Excuse me, but I think seeing to my son's well-being is definitely my business," she snapped. She advanced on Emma, and Graham held back, ready to spring into action if need be. "I'm not-" Emma started to say, but Regina cut her off.

"No, you don't get to say anything. You gave up that right when you signed him away," she nastily said. "Do you know what a closed adoption is? It's what you asked for, Ms. Swan. You have no legal right to Henry and you're going to be held to that. Henry may want you in his life, but I don't. I won't have you here in town just so you can take my son away from me," Regina was nearly shouting by the end, and Graham made to take a step towards her to calm her. "Regina, calm down-" he tried to soothe her, recognizing her wrath forthcoming.

"Hey lady!" Emma barked back, just as ferocious. "Back off. You're not ordering me anywhere because I am not here to steal your son," she growled.

"Thanks to me, you have him back now," she sniffed indignantly. "And if you don't mind, I'll be going now. I'll show myself out," the blonde boldly declared, shutting the study's door firmly behind her. She left the mayor's manor and went back home towards Granny's Bed and Breakfast, her blood boiling.

Her anger ebbed though as she walked, and she wondered guiltily for the first time about Lily and what the rest of the town was going to say about this new development at hand. Her worst secret come to light for everyone to cast the first stone.

Although she'd been running from the reality for years, she was just going to have to face up to the fact that she had abandoned a child the same way she had been abandoned. She left him to wonder the same heart breaking questions she'd always wanted to ask, "Why didn't you want me? Why didn't you try and keep me?"

Emma dreaded the morning.