CHAPTER FOURTEEN: CRABS

(In which Emma contemplates the geopolitical reorganization of Storybrooke and The Bug is having a bad day.)

"'I can't believe I'm sitting in space jail with you of all people.'"

Emma looked up from the file on her desk to her father standing in her office doorway. "What?"

"It's what that stoner said to his other stoner friend," David explained, frowning. "You know, the call last night? The meth lab in the old storm cellar."

"Oh... yeah... Mr. Clark... er... Sneezey called it in...?"

"While I was on night patrol. The guys were acting twitchy. Sneezey said he asked them, 'Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2AM' and they ran for it. I tracked them to the farm and entered the storm cellar just as the cook was saying 'I'm like seventy-five percent this won't explode on us.' Thankfully, it didn't explode until I'd cuffed them both in the back of the car."

"Uh-uh."

"'Uh-uh?' I just told you I almost died. Emma, have you heard a thing I've said?" David asked in an annoyed tone.

"Sorry, I'm a bit distracted," Emma apologized, and when her father huffed, rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, you almost die every couple of weeks. It's like your thing. Regina conjures fire balls, Mom spills secrets, you risk your life and barely avoid death. At a certain point, it's just hard to be shocked and/or relieved."

David crossed his arms and gave her a smug look before retorting, "You could ask Gold - or Mulan - where he moved, you know. And don't pretend you aren't 'distracted' thinking about Neal leaving town and chugging some forgetting potion. You don't know that he took it. Maybe he's just waiting for you to track him down."

Emma sighed. She'd gotten the leg cast off a week ago, thankfully, and her parents had decided it was time to look for a new place with two kids in the Loft - which made staying there a nightmare - and had already bought and moved into The Apprentice's creepy old mansion of empty books and portals to unknown dimensions - which just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen with two small kids, but that was how The Charmings rolled. Unfortunately, she worked with her father, so she couldn't escape him nagging her about Neal. She was surprised it had taken him this long, though he did have more patience than her mother who acted like a Pomeranian on crack at the barest whiff of anything that might be vaguely construed as romantic tension.

It was annoying to put it mildly. As soon as Neal died and her brother was named, her Neal was never talked about. He came back from the dead, but her parents pretty much ignored him. So did she, but that wasn't the point - she had brain damage, after all, and they'd apparently tested negative for syphilis - unless they were lying and her mother got it from Whale who'd probably banged every woman in town and then gave it to her father, and maybe Regina was keeping their medical information under wraps because her and Emma's parents seemed to have some weird quid pro quo thing now instead of the mutual distrust and attempted murder.

Regardless, the point was their hypocrisy and operating under this "we just want whatever you think is best and will support that until you don't know what you want and then we want you with someone because single people are losers" mentality.

When Emma found Neal in New York, her parents were all about her feelings for him, and how she needed to see if there was a chance. Then he died and they were blink-and-you-missed-the-respectful-mourning-phase quick to pair her up with Killian, because he was there for her. Really, he was just creepily always there without being asked and often when he was specifically told to beat it, and it was annoying... until it wasn't annoying, in part because her mother was just so damned matchmaker-y, like an old Jewish lady, but without any of actual life's wisdom. But, you'd think, if her parents were this epitome of true love, they'd have been able to know counterfeit romance from the real deal. Instead, as the product of true love, she was supposed to have some insight, but she'd been completely oblivious and let down the people she truly loved because of some fucking STDs! That was not in the "True Love Obstacles" handbook!

So, the last thing she needed was her father's advice, the man who was an indecisive douchebag under the Curse and then afterward immediately transitioned to trying to emotionally blackmail her into returning to the Enchanted Forest where she could find happiness - and Henry could grow up without knowing his father, of course, even though he'd technically be a bastard and thus couldn't inherit anything in that world, but hey, monarchy!

David liked that system of government far too much... but her mother seemed rather indoctrinated into it as well, and who would have ever thought Regina would be the more democratic mayor? And now they were a shit-heap of city-states with different "ordinances" that she had to enforce which meant a ton of paperwork. And, apparently, she was no better equipped to deal with it all when Dr. Whale gave her a clean bill of neurological health than when she was hopped up on horny spirochetes.

"And what would that accomplish?" Emma sighed. "Even if Neal did still remember, I'm sure he'd love to hear all about how the kid who doesn't care about him has turned into a pervert, no thanks to you, Robin, August, and Killian," she accused, and her father sputtered at that.

"I have no idea-"

"You pressured him to start dating too soon and you told him to follow the girl around, to not take no for an answer, if she wasn't interested!"

"I didn't exactly say-"

"That's how his hormone-raging teenage brain interpreted it!" Emma cut him off again while standing up. "You're just lucky he got treated before the damned disease damaged his brain or I might be trying to keep Jefferson from murdering Henry for raping Grace instead of just stalking her! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to meet with my ex-boyfriend to see if he can convince the other former flying ape residents to drop their wrongful death lawsuit before I pick up the Bug from getting the interior fumigated for crabs, and not the kind they cut up at the Cannery!"

AN: Crabs. Haha. To the Guest reviewer, don't despair. Zelena has some truth bombs to drop on Rumbelle. You just have to be patient and make it through the impending Swanfire mess.

Next up: This Henry-is-an-apathetic-little-punk theory begins to unravel as Emma makes a discovery and gets some harsh criticism from her son.