A/N: Thanks for reading everyone. I appreciate all the reviews and feedback. If you're looking for a cool music video for Once Upon a Time, go youtube Wonderland Once Upon A Time. Any of them are good, it fits Emma and the series to a tee :)


Chapter 13

Operation Cobra

A few days later, Emma and Lily finally decided to swallow their pride and pulled up in front of Mary Margaret's apartment complex. They'd been using Ruby's shower lately to freshen up and they were starting to miss stretching out in a bed at night. They didn't even mind if they had to share at this point.

The two women were starting to heal together. Emma and Lily snuggled at night to keep warm in the car. So far, they hadn't shared more than a few chaste kissses and some innocent hand holding. Lily was willing to go at whatever pace Emma needed and she didn't push her friend for more. She was just glad that Emma was finally ready to ask Mary Margaret about her extra bedroom. Lily had been ready to say yes the first night she learned the school teacher offered.

Mary Margaret wasn't home, so they sat in the car waiting on her. It was around 8:30 that night before Mary Margaret came walking home, her head hanging. She looked very pretty though in a pastel, purple colored dress that came just above her knees wearing cute, strappy white kitten high heels. She had pearl earrings in her ears and her blush was a little heavier than usual. She looked absolutely rosey, downright lovely, yet her face still wore a look of defeat.

"Hey, hot date tonight?" Emma cat called from their car. Mary Margaret startled, and raised her hand to her chest. "Goodness! You scared me!" she said, coming to stand abreast of the car. She peered curiously into it, noting all the girl's stuff piled into the back. "You might say that," she said, appearing a little deflated still. "You girls wanna come inside?" she invited them in after her.

From that moment on, Emma and Lily were welcome in Mary Margaret's home. They started paying rent and took the loft bedroom upstairs. There was a computer desk, a bedside table with an alarm clock, a large queen sized bed with prim white sheets that had tiny rosebuds printed on them, and a small half bath upstairs. One of the walls was a built in book case and a floor to ceiling square pink light illuminated the corner where a beat up pink recliner sat. Next to the recliner, there was a door to a small closet. On the book shelves, Mary Margaret had books of poetry and art and a few hundred magazines. There were a few DVDs and children's books scattered in among the variety. The girls made themselves at home, and then went back downstairs to visit with their gracious host.

She'd been compulsively tidying up while they were upstairs. Her lilac colored comforter was spread out smoothly without a wrinkle in sight. They'd even heard her run the vaccum cleaner briefly, and were amazed someone would go to so much trouble on their behalf.

When they descended the stairs, Mary Margaret was wiping down her kitchen counter vigorously. Emma approached her, and took the white cleaning rag from her hand. "By the looks of you, girl, you need to stop cleaning and have a drink," Emma said, smirking. "Where are the drinks in this place?" she asked.

Mary Margaret sighed and sagged against the counter tiredly. She gestured behind her to a cabinet, and Emma opened it to discover some Amaretto and a purple bag containing some Crown Royale. She looked in the white refrigderator with flowery shopping lists pinned to the front and found a two liter of Dr. Pepper. She mixed some drinks for the three of them and added ice. "Okay, now spill," the blonde said as they all sat down in the living room.

"Dr. Whale asked me out," she confided to the two girls. "You don't look that happy about it," Lily remarked, and Mary Margaret frowned. "No, I was," she protested, and Emma interrupted her, "You're telling me! You didn't have to hear how attractive Dr. Whale was, how smart," Emma mocked her friend, saying the doctor's title breathily enough to convey the depth of the school teacher's longing.

The pixie haired woman colored, and averted her eyes with a bashful smile. "God, Emma! You make me sound like a lovesick school girl," she groaned. "Say you weren't," Emma dared her. "What's changed?" Lily asked. "Well, he was ogling Ruby the entire time," she complained.

"Did he at least pay?" Emma asked. Mary Margaret shook her head dismally. "Ooh! Some doctor, he sounds like an asshole," Lily laughed. "Not even worth feeling blue, I'll tell you. I had a girl once call out her ex's name when I made her O," Lily dished her own sad, vulgar details and Mary Margaret blushed as Emma rolled her eyes, knowing said girl had not been herself.

"Why's it always gotta be about sex with you?" she asked, exasperated, and Lily winked, "Don't blame me 'cause you girls don't know how to have a good time."

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

After school the next day, Henry went to visit Ms. Blanchard at the hospital where she volunteered. He was happy when he bumped into his mother Emma, who had chosen to accompany her roommate for the afternoon on her good samaritan work, as Emma liked to call it.

Henry followed Ms. Blanchard as she went from bed to bed, putting fresh flowers on the sick patient's bedsides and stopping to chat gently with some of the recovering ill. Henry helped out by collecting discarded food trays and dishes as he followed her pushing his cart.

Henry stopped by an old biddy's bed, her name was Enid. Enid was usually pretty cantankerous with the staff even though she pretty much lived at the hospital due to her cancer treatment. She really liked Henry, though, and always had some kind of sweet to share with him when he went to collect her tray.

She coughed and wheezed when he approached, and Henry smiled brightly at the old woman. Henry liked old people, they weren't nearly so cruel as his young peers. In his experience, most of the elderly were kind and he found them fascinating, so full of life history stories they were always willing to share with him.

Emma watched her son from across the room as she assisted a poor ailing woman readjust her pillows. She fluffed the pillows and helped the woman sit more comfortably propped against them and handed the woman a book.

Before she moved onto the next, she stopped to appreciate how sweet her little boy was for a moment. Here he was, volunteering with the sick and the elderly, and her heart swelled with pride. He was talking animately with an old woman with a head of whispy, curly blue hair.

Just at that moment, Emma watched a very pregnant teenager come out of the ladie's room. Her cheeks were streaked with tears and her face was blotchy red from crying. The pained look on the girl's face had Emma stepping towards her.

"Are you alright, miss?" she asked cautiously, approaching the young blonde woman at the water fountain she'd paused at to compose herself and get a drink. The girl looked frightfully over her shoulder, startled at the stranger behind her and embarrassed to be caught in such a state. She sniffed loudly and dashed her hand across her eyes. "Yes, I'm fine," she tried to reassure the stranger, but her voice shook as her lower lip trembled.

"Are you sure you're feeling okay? Can I get you-" Emma started to offer her assistance, but the blonde hastily shook her head. "No, thank you," the girl said brusquely and rushed past Emma as fast as her pregnant waddle would allow.

She rushed away with her head held down and Emma stared after her. Something about the sad, scared look in her eyes when she turned around made Emma's heart wring. She approached Mary Margaret, and pulled on her sleeve to get her attention quickly.

"Who is that girl?" Emma asked, indicating the blonde before she slipped out the exit. Mary Margaret didn't get a good look at her. "You know, if I'm not mistaken, she and Ruby went to school together, or they're friends somehow," Mary Margaret answered.

"I'm not that familiar with her, but it's hard not to hear things when you live in a town this small," she said. She looked a little scandalized when she leaned in closer to Emma to dish out some gossip. "Poor girl has no one," Mary Margaret said. "Her boyfriend hasn't been around since he landed her in the mess she's in," she shared with Emma.

Emma felt a burning desire to chase the teen down then, and squashed the urge because she knew it would make her look crazy. She, a stranger, running after some girl she didn't know to give her unsolicited advice. She wanted to run after her because the scared and alone pregnant blonde girl reminded her too much of herself at that age.

Henry entered the room with his teacher and mother. They were in a secluded, partioned off area by a glass observational wall. A youthful looking man lay prone on the bed, heart moniter beeping steadily at his beside. Mary Margaret had been rolling him in bed, repositioning him so that the comatose patient didn't develop bedsores.

It looked unnatural to Henry, how the unknown man's body limply responded to his teacher's handling. He remained asleep, and Henry noticed as Mary Margaret rolled the patient towards him and his face was upturned a long, horizontal scar on his chin. His keen eyes sparked at the sight, but neither of the women in the room noticed, busy as they were.

"Is Mr. Doe ever gonna wake up?" Henry asked. Emma was brought out of her reverie by the child's question, realizing for the first time he had wandered into the room. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as she observed the man on the bed with a grim understanding.

"We don't know Henry, he may never wake up. All we can do is take good care of him and hope for the best," Mary Margaret said, and she looked fondly down at the comatose patient. Despite his condition, he was really rather good looking.

Mary Margaret had been caring for the comatose man for as long as she could remember. He was a part of her usual routine at the hospital after work. Sometimes, she found herself wondering what he would be like if he ever woke up, and she used to imagine things about him from time to time. That was before she started noticing the handsome, conscious Dr. Whale, who flirted with her and made her stomach do flip flops when he winked at her.

"Come now, Henry, you're not supposed to be in here," she chided him, and put her hand on Henry's shoulder to lead him from the room. Emma followed behind the pair, and excused herself, suddenly feeling emotionally exhausted.

Henry invited himself along with her when she parted ways with Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret had more work to do, but Emma just had to get out of that hospital. Henry surprised her when they left when he slipped his small hand into hers. She smiled down at him and squeezed his hand back. "How much time we got, kid?" she asked, being mindful of Regina's schedule.

That damnable mayor would just die a million tiny deaths if she knew that Henry was using every moment he could spare breaking all her rules. In his life before Emma, Henry would have moped around the house, bored and alone, nothing to occupy his troubled mind. Now, he had Emma and his story book, and he was eager to make up for lost time.

"She gets off at five," he said. He asked Emma to take them to his castle, and she obliged him with her spirits soaring the farther they got from the hospital. Emma let herself forget about the pregnant girl. When they got out of the car, Henry rushed with his story book to sit on one of the play things. He beckoned Emma to come and sit with him, and she smiled as she bade his request.

"I know who Mr. Doe is," Henry confided in her in a low whisper. Emma looked around, knowing full well they were completely alone for miles. "Honey, his name's not Mr. Doe. It stands for John Doe, and that's what they call someone when they don't know who that person really is," she explained. Henry shrugged impatiently, "Okay, but do you know who he is?"

"No, why would I? I never met him before today," Emma said, perplexed. She frowned down at Henry, and he scowled at her. "Don't look at me like that," the boy beseeched her, and he started flipping through the pages and illustrations in the story book. He finally found the page he was looking for; it was the story of Snow White and Prince Charming.

He showed it to Emma and pointed at the man on the page that had just been hit with a rock by the bandit who robbed him. "Don't you see?" the kid asked.

"See what?" Emma asked, looking down cluelessly at the page. The man on the page had blue eyes and fair skin. The cut on his chin stood out where a jagged scar would surely form. "That man has the same scar as John Doe. Mr. Doe is Prince Charming," Henry said proudly, identifying another character from his fairy tale world. Emma suddenly understood, and her eyes clouded over with concern, especially at his next words. "He's your dad," he claimed. How absurd!

"Don't you see what this means? The curse is keeping them apart by keeping him in a coma. Now, they're stuck without each other, a fate worse than death. We have to tell Ms. Blanchard we found her Prince Charming."

Emma internally sighed, distressed that she had to entertain such fanciful ideas. She had never anticipated this is what having a kid would be like, that your patience would be tested constantly. Emma did not like encouraging him in delving further into his head, and was hoping one day he would come around and feel happier, not need the fantasy world, now that she was around. Am I hoping for too much?

"Okay, so that means you think Mary Margaret is his soul mate Snow White," Emma said, trying to follow along. "And if what you say is true, then that means that Mary Margaret is my mom," she said increduously, and Henry didn't miss the doubtful tone of her voice.

"I know it's a lot to ask anyone to believe in," he said, echoing her. "If the hero believed everything right from the beginning, it wouldn't be a very good story. But we have to try, Emma," he implored his mother. "We know who they are, they should, too," he persevered.

"Alright," Emma said, surprising him when she relented. "Okay?!" he asked, excited. "Yeah, let's do this," Emma said, choosing to win the long game with her kid. If he needed this fantasy for now, and this was his way of connecting with her, then she was willing to play ball. "How do you suppose we do this?" she asked. "Okay, the first step is identification; I call it Operation Cobra," Henry proudly revealed to her.

She supressed a foolish grin by biting her lip. "That has nothing to do with fairy tales, kid," she protested. "That's the point, it's a code word to throw the queen off our trail," he patiently explained. "So if everyone here is a story book character that doesn't remember who they really are, how do you expect us to make Prince Charming realize who he really is?" she asked curiously. "By reminding him," Henry said after some thought. "And how exactly will we do that?"

"We have to ask Ms. Blanchard to read to him. Maybe hearing their story will make him remember and wake up," Henry suggested, nearly bouncing up and down in excitement. If Emma didn't know any better, he looked like he was hopped up on sugary kid treats and adrenaline.

"Okay, but we do this my way," Emma declared, leaning in conspirtionally with the young boy. "You let me ask Mary Margaret, and we'll get her to meet us for breakfast tomorrow and give us a special report."

"Alright," Henry agreed.

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

After Emma dropped Henry off, she headed back towards Mary Margaret's place. Lily was home, sitting on the couch painting her nails. Mary Margaret was in the kitchen making dinner for them all, and it smelled great. It felt great to come home to her two friends.

As they ate dinner, Emma filled them in on her plan for Henry. "If you agree to do this, maybe this will show him that this isn't a fairy tale world, people don't just wake up out of the blue," Emma stated to the pair. Mary Margaret chewed thoughtfully and considered her offer. She loved Henry in her own way, being so close to him as his favorite teacher, so it was in her nature to try and help him.

"Okay, I'll do it," the school teacher said. "What if he does wake up?" Lily asked hypothetically. Emma scoffed as Mary Margaret got up after they finished eating to pick up everyone's plates. "As if, don't tell me you actually believe in pixie dust and fairy tales, too," Emma exasperatedly said. Lily frowned briefly, then gave an airy laugh. "I never rule out anything," she said.

Mary Margaret headed to the kitchen with the dishes and Emma went after her with a protest. "Nu uh," Emma chided her friend, and came into the kitchen to bully her out of the way. "We'll do the dishes, you have to get ready for your date," Emma playfully joked.

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, and went to gather her jacket and the book Henry loaned them. She was off to the hospital.

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

It was dark out, and Mary Margaret was shyly perched on the side of John Doe's bed inside the hospital. The curtains were still partially drawn from the daytime, and the fluorescent lights in the hospital room glared against the dark window, obscuring Mary Margaret's view outside.

She concentrated on the man beside her, and cleared her throat nervously. She didn't know why she should be so nervous, he wasn't even conscious. Could it be that she secretly hoped that Henry was right, and this gorgeous man was her soul mate? She day dreamed about what it would be like for him to wake up suddenly and take her into his arms.

Blushing and shaking her head to clear it, Mary Margaret opened the book on her lap. "Humor me, I'm doing this for a friend of mine," she plaintively said. She launched into the story of Snow White and Prince Charming and their unexpected first meeting and how the two fell in love.

"And it was there, under the shadow of the troll bridge, that their love for each other was born," she finished the tale wistfully, and then nearly died of fright the next second when John Doe's hand suddenly reached out and grasped her wrist.

She jumped up in fear, and looked down at the man. He was still asleep. But he moved! Mary Margaret rushed from the room to find Dr. Whale. Ass that he was, Dr. Whale treated her like some stupid intern when she brought him babbling back to the comatose patient.

Dr. Whale blinked, the same sight as always greeting him. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?" Dr. Whale asked, his tone bored. Mary Margaret narrowed her eyes at him. "Look, I was reading to him, and he just grabbed my hand," she insisted.

"Maybe you fell asleep and were dreaming, or thought you saw something you really didn't," the doctor suggested nastily, calling her a liar. Mary Margaret turned away from him in disgust. How had she ever liked him? She gathered up Henry's book and left Dr. Whale in a huff.

Dr. Whale waited for the volunteer to leave, then placed a phone call. "You told me to call if anything changed with our John Doe patient," he said into the phone. "There's been a development. One of the volunteers says he grabbed her, and his readings show he did register brain activity..."

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

In the middle of the night, John Doe awoke from his coma. No one was around. He was disoriented. His feet were on auto pilot, and he jerked his IV's out and the breathing apparatus off his face. His limbs were weak and sore from misuse, and he stumbled as he headed for the nearest exit.

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

The next morning, the three women rose together and went to pick up Henry at the Mayor's Manor. They rode in Emma's bug back to the diner, and Henry was bursting with questions. He waited long enough for the morning waitress to deliver their orders before he exploded.

"So what happened?!" he asked Ms. Blanchard. The school teacher darted a look towards Emma, since Emma and Lily had been asleep when she returned the night previous. Neither of them had heard the news yet, and Mary Magaret shared a piercing look with Emma. "He woke up," she said, and Henry gasped. "Well, not all the way, but he grabbed my hand," she said. "No way..." Emma's mouth hung open.

"Don't you see?!" Henry gushed, excited. Emma was stunned at the news and upset that her plan backfired. Now Henry was more sure than ever, and it put Emma in a pickle. "What did the doctor say?" Lily asked. "That I was imagining it, but I know what I saw!" Mary Margaret defended herself.

"He's remembering, I knew it!" Henry exclaimed. "You have to go back and read to him again," Henry pushed. Mary Margaret had a bright excited gleam in her eyes, and Lily and Emma knew it would be pointless to try and stop her. "Okay, let's go," Mary Margaret said, and they started off towards the hospital once they finished their meal.

When they arrived, they discovered that John Doe had gone missing in the night. "Where could he go?" Mary Margaret asked, worried about him already. Henry could see the concern in his teacher's face and felt compelled even more to make sure the couple wound up together. They just had to have their happy ending, and he was determined to be the one to help them.

"How long has he been gone?" Emma asked, her bail bonds person persona taking over. She was used to producing results, and if one thing was certain, she was good at finding people.

"We just finished watching the surveillance from last night, and he walked out that east exit about four hours ago," Sheriff Graham informed them. "Where does it lead?" Emma asked, and the janitor known as Leroy answered her, "The woods."

They started a search party, something that Emma was learning was common in this town, and went looking for the dazed and confused patient. They were right, how far could he go? It started to rain heavily on their search and the sky turned dark and stormy, lightning striking overhead.

It turned out, the answer wasn't far. They were part of a crew that was dragging the river. It was at a shallow bend in the river, below the toll bridge, that they first spotted John Doe. Emma gasped in surprise when lightning lit up the sky and thunder cracked loud as a whip, and they saw a body laying face down in the shallow water.

Mary Margaret automatically rushed to the aid of the body on the ground. She turned him onto his back and performed CPR, giving him the kiss of life. "Come back!" she commanded him, administering frantic pumps to his chest. "Come back to me!" John Doe suddenly gasped and coughed up a large amount of water. He weakly rolled over to wretch more, but at least he was alive.

She knelt on the ground and cradled his head in her lap, looking at him with relief in her big, watery blue eyes. "Don't worry, we've got you," his savior assured him. The rain was falling all around them, but he was sheltered from it as her face hovered over his and he groggily thought how beautiful she was, before he passed out.

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

When they returned with David to the hospital, a very hostile mayor was waiting there for them. "Henry, come here," she commanded and the boy hung his head as he went towards her. "You're lucky you found him so soon," the mayor said, referring to the patient, after her son was safely tucked to her side with her arm around him.

"Even luckier still, I found his wife," Regina said deviously, stepping back to reveal an anxious, generously freckled blonde woman that came forth. Her eyes were rimmed with red from crying and she looked towards the hospital room they'd hauled her husband into.

"Wait a minute, who?" Mary Margaret asked incredulously. She looked at the blonde before her, a scowl starting to form on her usually serene face. "I'm David's wife, Katherine Nolan," the woman said, walking up to them. She shook Mary Margaret's hand gratefully. "I heard you were the ones who found my husband, thank you so much," she said to them.

"You didn't know he was in a coma?" Mary Margaret asked doubtfully. Katherine sighed, and lowered her eyes guiltily. "When David left, we weren't doing so good. I realize now that I was the one being difficult, moody, but back then I told him if he didn't like it, he could leave... so he did," she said sadly.

Her hands came up to nervously play with her long blonde hair, and they noticed a gold wedding band on her finger. "All this time, I thought he left town. Now I know why he never called me," she said, her eyes filling with tears.

"Now I get to do what I always wanted to, and apologize, and we can start over." She said, turning to look at her husband through the glass partition. "Now we get a second chance," Katherine said, love in her in her eyes and all over her face. "That's wonderful," Mary Margaret said, but her own face looked crushed.

"Regina is the one who found me, I can't thank her enough." They all looked back at Regina, and her head lifted haughtily just a little. "It was my pleasure," she said. "Henry, let's go," she commanded. The boy got up from his seat to follow her and was half way to the elevator behind his mother when he stopped. "I forgot my back pack," he said, and went back towards the chairs the women were occupying.

He grabbed his back pack and looking pleadingly up at his teacher. "Don't believe them," he whispered. "He was going to the toll bridge because he was looking for you." Mary Margaret protested,"Henry, he was going there because it was the last thing I read to him."

"No, he was looking for you. Don't let them fool you, you belong together," the young boy said. Mary Margaret looked sadly at him, and Regina called sharply for him, "Henry!" Henry trotted after his mother, and Emma suddenly got up to follow them and speak her mind.

"Miss Mayor," she called, her pet name of sorts for the woman she so much abhorred. Regina muttered something to Henry, and he went on towards the elevator while she turned around. "Yes, Ms. Swan?" she inquired.

"What happened back there, Mrs. Nolan's story..." Emma raised an eyebrow suspiciously, her hands jauntily held on her hips. "Her story all sounds like a load of crap to me," she bluntly said. "Why, Ms. Swan, and here I thought you would be happy. True love won out," Regina said, a smirk on her dark lips. "Be that as it may, why would Mrs. Nolan lie?"

"How did you even find her? Why are you even here in the first place, Miss Mayor?" Emma asked. Regina rolled her eyes, clearly vexed. "I was his emergency contact," she said. "I found him on the side of the road a few years ago and brought him here," she elaborated. "So you were his emergency contact for all these years and you just found this woman?"

"Ms. Swan, the joy of this special occasion has put me in quite the forgiving mood so I'll ignore your rudeness." She readjusted her skirt, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from it and continued. "While the Sheriff was playing back those tapes, I happened to find some earlier footage. He'd been calling out for a Katherine, and it wasn't hard to put the pieces together from there," she claimed.

"Still, all these years, and she never put out any fliers looking for him? Never reported him?" Emma asked suspiciously. Regina sighed impatiently. "Ms. Swan, you heard what she said. She had reason to believe he'd left town, and if he said that's what he was going to do, how was she supposed to know any different?"

Emma let off, and let Regina leave with a troubled mind. Her super power was never wrong.