Night fell over the family as they roasted their marshmallows, made their s'mores, and shared lame jokes and even lamer scary stories. It had started slowly, with a faint reddening of the sun's light. The light had grown more intense as the sun went down, almost as if the sun didn't want to give up the fight against the coming darkness. Then, what felt to Emma like mere seconds later, it was dark. The flickering flames of the campfire provided the only illumination in the entire clearing.
After a while, Emma stopped talking and just listened, taking in the activity – both seen and unseen – around her. The chirping of the crickets in the brush, the song of the spring peepers, the hoot of an owl somewhere in the trees. Henry laughing at one of his grandfather's funny jokes or groaning at a lame one. He would even let out a combination laugh and groan at the not as rare as one might think lame and funny joke.
When a shiver made its way down Emma's spine despite the heat of the fire, Snow suggested putting the fire out and heading back to the apartment. They still had a tent to pitch, after all, and it was getting late.
It didn't take much convincing for everyone to agree, though Henry was so hyped up on s'mores that Emma suspected he would have agreed to pretty much anything. Maybe she shouldn't have let him have that fifth one. Or the fourth one, for that matter.
David switched on a camping lantern before filling a bucket with melted ice from the cooler and pouring it over the fire. "We need someone to watch the fire and make sure that it's completely out before we go."
"I can do it," Emma said as she switched on a lantern of her own. She had the Enchanted Forest to thank for that, too. She'd gotten all kinds of practice making sure their fire was completely snuffed before they moved on. The land had been ravaged enough, they'd all agreed. Inadvertently starting a forest fire had not been high on anyone's list.
"Okay," David smiled. Henry and Snow both got to their feet and followed David back to the cooler so they could begin packing up.
Emma watched them go and then turned back to the fire. A few straggling embers were hanging on. A half-smile curled on her lips as she remembered watching the dying fire that night with the Brownes, too. Something about the way the coals brightened and faded and brightened again as they burned themselves out had fascinated her back then.
Truth be told, it still kind of fascinated her now. Much like the sun's rays brightening in those last moments as night overtook day, the dying embers brightened, fighting until they had no fight left.
Her mother's soft voice calling her name startled her back to the present. She turned around to find Snow holding up a lantern and smiling kindly at her in the semi-darkness. "We're going to start bringing things out to the truck. Do you want us to leave Henry with you?"
The offer to leave Henry with Emma was a rather blatant attempt at making sure she wasn't left alone in the woods unless she wanted to be. Blatant or not, a little smile of gratitude tugged at Emma's mouth. The smile grew into smirk when Henry clasped his hands under his chin in a pleading gesture behind his grandparents' backs. "Yeah, he can stay here. If you don't mind, that is."
"Of course we don't," Snow smiled. She and David picked up as much of their camping equipment as they could carry along with their lanterns and headed off into the trees, back towards David's truck parked on the access road.
Henry ran over to Emma and plopped down next to her, not quite close enough to be on top of her but close enough that he had invaded her personal space. The kid had constantly been in her bubble since her return from the Forest but she was finding, to her complete surprise, that she didn't really mind. Not with him, anyway.
"Thanks," Henry murmured, glancing over his shoulder to make sure his grandparents were well out of earshot. "I didn't realize that camping would be so much work!"
Emma snorted in amusement. "What, you thought all you were going to have to do was curl up in a sleeping bag and be done with it?"
"Yeah, pretty much," he admitted sheepishly. "When I used to do this before, my mom would set up the play tent in the back yard for me, and all I would have to do to get ready was bring my sleeping bag and my backpack outside."
She smiled kindly before returning her attention to the fire. "If we were staying out here, even just for the night, there would have been a lot more work to do." She didn't dare tell him that, from what she recalled of watching the Brownes, pitching a tent wasn't exactly an easy feat, either. After a moment of silence, she turned her head to look him in the eye. "Are you having fun, though? Even if it is a lot of work?"
"I'm having a blast!" he told her excitedly. He paused before taking a deep breath and asking, "Are you?"
"Yeah," she said with a smile. "I am."
"Really? Because, you know, you can tell me if you're not."
"I'm having more fun than I thought I would," she told him sincerely. She'd thought she would hate every minute of this activity but so far, it had turned out far better than she'd been expecting. She didn't think she'd ever like camping but she didn't think she absolutely abhorred it anymore, either.
"That's good," Henry replied, his eyes sparkling in the lantern's light.
By the time David and Snow returned to the clearing, giggling softly about something Emma didn't even want to question, the final embers had burned themselves out. Emma stirred the ashes with the end of her marshmallow skewer before holding her hand above the fire bed, feeling for heat. She felt none, so she got to her feet, gesturing for Henry to follow her lead.
"The fire's completely out," she said to her parents, holding the lantern up as she approached them. "Is there anything I can take to the truck?"
The grin on her mother's face plainly indicated that she was going to regret asking.
Everyone loaded their arms with as much equipment and camping paraphernalia as possible in an effort to get all of their stuff out of the clearing in this one last trip. They managed to do it, too, once again due to that innate stubbornness that ran through all of them. Once the truck was loaded, Snow, Henry, and Emma all piled into the cab while David settled behind the wheel.
"So," Henry asked as David turned the key in the ignition. "Who's going to teach me how to pitch a tent?"
"I think I'm going to volunteer your grandfather for that one," Snow chuckled, smiling innocently at her husband.
"Yeah," Emma quickly agreed, nodding as if that was the best plan she'd ever heard.
"Gee, thanks," David teased, taking his eyes off the road for the briefest of moments to wink at his wife and daughter. "Why do Henry and I get the dubious honor of pitching the tent?"
"We set up the grill," Snow reminded him.
"Yes, but we built the fire."
Henry and Emma exchanged an amused grin at the playful argument between husband and wife.
"We had enough tent-pitching in the Enchanted Forest."
"Actually," Emma broke in with a smirk, "we were more in the business of tent construction in the Enchanted Forest. It was either that or find a cave of some sort to hide out in for the night."
"Perhaps," David allowed, "but Emma, you're probably the only one of us who's ever pitched a modern tent."
"I hate to tell you, but I've never pitched a modern tent," she told him. "I've only been camping once, and I was seven, remember? We didn't pitch the tents. Kevin and Tim may have helped … they were older. Mr. and Mrs. Browne just charged Adam and me with keeping Natalie occupied and out of everyone's way."
"How old was Natalie?" Snow asked her, a gentle smile on her face. No matter how her daughter's time with this family ended, she could tell just by the look on Emma's face how much she had enjoyed being with them.
"Four." Emma returned Snow's smile before once again addressing her father. "David Nolan clearly liked the outdoors since most of this is his stuff. Can't you just reach back into your David Nolan Memory Rolodex and use them to pitch the tent?"
He chuckled at her choice of descriptive phrase. "Be that as it may, none of those memories are real. I didn't actually experience any of them. Twenty-eight years in a coma, remember?"
"False memories or not, you have them, and they're more than any of us have," Emma pointed out.
Henry giggled. "I think she's got you there, Gramps."
"Yes, I guess she does," David admitted with an amused smile. "So, what do you say, Sir Henry? Are you up for pitching a tent with your grandpa?"
"Absolutely," Henry grinned.
By the time David pulled into his spot in the apartment's parking lot, everyone had decided that Emma and Snow would unload the truck while he and Henry picked a spot and pitched the tent. The plan was to find an unobtrusive area of the grounds out of consideration for the neighbors. Although, Emma highly doubted anyone would say anything. The neighbors were all lovely people, not to mention that being both the royal family and the savior's family certainly had its perks.
Emma carried the now much lighter cooler upstairs while Snow brought up the grill. Once inside, they started to unpack the cooler and put away the uneaten food. David had been correct; there really weren't a lot of pickles left. If Emma had room in her stomach, she would have polished the rest of the jar off right then and there.
She was just turning around to put the graham crackers back in the cabinet when Snow slid the box out of her hand. "I'll finish up out here. Go on up and change. You look like you want to."
She really did. It was late enough that her body was itching for sleep attire. "Thanks," she smiled.
When she was halfway up the stairs, Snow's voice stopped her and made her turn around. "You might want to bring the bug spray down with you. It'll be a long and uncomfortable night if the mosquitoes find us."
Emma wrinkled her nose. Four people in a tent, all covered with bug spray. That was something she hadn't thought of until this very moment. "Oh, great. The whole tent is going to smell like bug spray all night long, isn't it?"
Snow laughed. "Yes. Better smelling like bug spray than being eaten alive, though." That, Emma had to admit, was a reasonable point. "Besides, this world's sprays don't smell all that horrible. You should have smelled the Enchanted Forest version."
A smirk curled on Emma's lips. "Something tells me that I'm glad I missed the Enchanted Forest bug spray. Although, you know what smell I do like that no one else does?"
"What's that?"
"Calamine lotion."
"You're right," Snow replied, eyebrows raised. "You don't hear of a lot of people enjoying that odor. Recognizing it, sure, but not liking it."
"Told you." She shrugged and started up the stairs but Snow once again called her name. "You know," she sighed as she turned around, "it's very hard to go upstairs and change when people keep stopping you to talk."
Snow gave her an apologetic smile. "I just wanted to thank you … for agreeing to this. It's been a really nice night."
Emma smiled back. "It really has been, hasn't it?"
After a beat of silence, Snow shooed Emma up the stairs. Finally able to make it up to her room without interruption, Emma realized that each member of her family had mentioned having a good time. None of it would have happened if not for Henry and her own inability to say no to his Puppy Dog Eyes.
Sometimes, she supposed, that inability to say no could lead to nice things. Not that she enjoyed camping in any way, shape, or form, but tonight had been fun so far. And she was sure there was more fun to be had.