CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: ROCK 'N' ROLL HEART

(In which one of those favorite recycled traumatic plot device that probably won't be mentioned again happens and there's unintended quasincest because the Once Upon A Time Universe demands quasincest!)

The night was humid and the air conditioner sluggish in the small room.

Sharing a motel room with a teenage boy she'd just met should have struck Emma as a very bad idea. But Lily's betrayal and Ingrid's psychotic break aside, she considered herself generally good at first impressions of people. Well, okay, those things considered she kind of sucked at it, not that she would ever admit it, and she did have a concussion which probably meant her judgment was a bit compromised, but Henry and Neal really did seem like nice people.

Of course, she'd still locked the bathroom door when she took a shower. That was just common sense!

While Henry took his turn, Emma shoved her feet back into her borrowed galoshes and grabbed the plastic ice bucket. The ice machine was just around the corner, the generic white glowing "ICE" in red letters promising frosty goodness. The blast of cold air to the face felt fantastic!

"I don't like massages or something meant to say," Emma sang lyrics stuck in her head as she shoveled ice into the bucket. "And I wish people like that would just go away - I guess I'm just dumb, 'cause I know I'm not smart - But deep down inside, I got a rock 'n' roll heart - Yeah-yeah-yeah, deep down inside I got a rock 'n' roll heart - Yeah, rock 'n' roll heart - Searchin' for a good time-"

"I can show you one, darl'n," a voice startled her into dropping the shovel.

It was the mouthy trucker from the diner standing uncomfortably close. And he had B.O. worse than swamp gas! Never mind the whole creepy pickup line.

Rather than go the mouthy route, considering the guy had pushed Henry around already, Emma stepped away and tried to be non-confrontational. "I'm done. It's all yours."

"Oh, I'm not looking for ice, darl'n," he chuckled, advancing far faster than Emma had thought him capable.

She threw the ice at his face and ran, but galoshes were not made for running and she stumbled, wincing as she felt her ankle twist painfully. In that moment, the trucker grabbed her wrist and spun her, shoving her face-first against the side of the vending machine next to the ice machine and she barely got out a squeak before a beefy, greasy hand covered her mouth. As panic started to set in, Emma squirmed and tried to twist herself free, but the pervert was too big and strong.

The florescent lights flickered, one fizzling out, increasing the shadows that concealed the alcove.

"Your daddy and brother shouldn't let you go out alone so late," the trucker crooned booze breath in her ear and reached a beefy hand around her waist to tug at the drawstring of Henry's borrowed cotton sleep pants.

"Get away from her!"

It was Henry.

The trucker gave him a nasty look. "Gonna throw a sparkly pink tiara at me?"

Henry charged, the guy released Emma, throwing her hard against the ice machine, there was a hiss of pain from Henry, grabbing his hand as blood spilled on the pavement.

And then there was a click of gun cocking, but not from the trucker. Neal had appeared and leveled the gun at their assailant, growling. "I suggest you get in your truck now and leave."

The guy sidled away and then ran off into the parking lot. Emma grabbed her ripped waistband, hating that her hands were shaking badly and limped over to Henry. "Are you okay?"

Holding his bloodied hand in his T-shirt, he responded, "Shouldn't I be asking you th-"

Emma took a step forward and kissed him. It was stupid and impulsive and though he was kind of cute in a dorky way she didn't really like him like that, but this is what girls did in super hero movies and it was kind of hot.

Henry backed away and coughed. "Gross! Weird! Complicated!'

"I-I'm sorry," Emma sputtered. "I didn't mean..."

Neal walked over, breaking up the awkward situation, "That was a really stupid thing to do, Henry. Brave but stupid."

"What can I say, I'm a Charming?" Henry answered.

Sighing, Neal look at his hand. "Well, it probably won't need stitches..."

To Emma, he asked, "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

Emma quickly shook her head, though she couldn't hide her limp.

...

"Please put me down. It's just a sprained ankle!" Emma complained, one arm slung awkwardly around Neal's shoulder and the other holding the first aide kit from the car while Henry was carrying the bucket of ice in his hand not wrapped in paper towels from the trunk.

"And you're likely to make it worse wearing those boots," Neal told her while Henry got the room door open, leaving Emma to just grumble in resignation until she'd be deposited on one of the twin beds and then propped her ankle up on some pillows.

"Why'd you come looking for me, anyway?" she asked while Neal tend to Henry's hand. "I was just getting ice."

"Well, I don't know about Henry," said Neal, "but I was going to get ice myself on account of someone having hit me in the nuts with a rusty pipe earlier. Might have been nice if someone else," he glanced at his son, "had alerted me that you were both leaving the room."

"I just wanted to make sure Emma didn't pass out or something," Henry explained. "You said to keep an eye on her on account of the concussion."

Neal sighed and shook his head. "Well, from now on, no going out alone, either of you, especially not in some sleezy truck stop after midnight."

Shutting the first aid kit, he amended, "I think there's some plastic snack bags in the car to the rest of the ice in. I'll get some more ice and pillows, and some dry washcloths too. Just take some aspirin and keep it elevated."

"Thanks," Emma told him, taking the plastic bottle and glass of water. "I mean, really, for everything."

"Considering I picked the cheapest motel in Tallahassee frequented by rapists," sighed Neal, "I think we can call it even, Emma."

Emma nodded and waited until Neal had gotten the other ice bucket and she heard the adjoining room's door shut, then took a breath and blurted out, "I'm sorry for kissing you. You're just really nice and its been awhile since I've had anyone stick up for me and I got carried away and I've never even kissed a boy before, so if I did it wrong or offended you or something, I'm really sorry. And about the calling you a dork thing. You're not a dork. You're-"

"Gay."

Emma blinked. "What?"

"I'm gay," Henry told her. "Hence the whole 'pink tiara' thing."

"Oh." Emma cringed at her mistake while at the same time feeling immensely relieved. "So... I didn't... I'm not a terrible kisser then?"

Henry flushed and groaned. "I dunno. I was kind of distracted with the getting stabbed part."

"Erm... right." Emma winced. "Sorry about that."

"It's fine," Henry insisted, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "I was stupid to try and attack the guy. Guess I was just still pissed off about earlier. I think I take after my mom's mom who's all about trying to solve problems by talking about it. Just not with the right people. Throw in my grandfather who swings first and asks questions later, and I should have learned from our family's luck that both approaches usually result in bodily injury. Better to just leave and then find out a bunch of dirt to blackmail them with like my other grandfather," he snorted with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, stupid or not, it was still very brave," Emma insisted, "standing up to that racist misogynist bigoted reprobate."

"Big words for a hobo!" Henry teased and Emma gave him a slight shove.

"Hey, I may be a 'hobo', but I read and stuff!"

"Yeah, and you were totally just looking for an excuse to use 'reprobate' in a sentence!" laughed Henry. "Who's the dork now?"

Emma stuck her tongue out, then admitted, "Okay, fine, I might have read Harry Potter, but only 'cause I got the book as one of those donated Christmas gifts at the group home. But I didn't hate it. Not 'til my crazy foster mom pushed me in front of a car and told me to do magic. I feel kind of sorry for her, though. She said she accidentally shot and killed her sister when this guy attacked them and was trying to rape her, but he pushed her sister in from him. Plus, some pedophile tried to kidnap her and her sisters when they were little, so she wasn't allowed to leave the house for years or something. Of course, maybe she made that all up, being crazy and believing in magic. Or maybe that messed her up and made her want to believe in magic. Not me, though. That kinda stuff can't happen and have magic be real. That's why I think Disney sucks!"

Henry looked at her curiously as Emma picked at her bracelet. The older he'd gotten, the more curious he'd become about his mother's experience in the Foster Care System, but even when they were living in New York and he thought that she'd raised him, it was a subject he knew she wasn't comfortable with and so he'd never asked - but certain things she'd said or done, her reactions to news stories and the like, had nagged at him over the years. "Emma," he hesitated before, asking, "were you molested?"

Her head snapped up and her eyes widened. "No, of course not!" she scoffed. "Why would you even think that?"

"It's okay to talk about it," Henry prompted.

"There's nothing to talk about!" Emma exclaimed, throwing her legs over the side of the bed, intending to either shut herself in the bathroom, or Neal's room, she hadn't exactly decided, but the pain in her ankle as soon as she put weight on it sent her falling in a heap to the grungy carpet, tears springing from her eyes with an angry, "Shit!"

"Emma..." Henry let out a sigh, "Come on, get back in bed before you make it worse," he said, helping her up while she sniffed and refused to look at him.

"My life sucks," she mumbled after retrieving the sodden ice packet.

Emma hadn't intended to say more than that, but it was like so much had been bubbling up since Ingrid and Lily and suddenly she couldn't keep it all in and it just came flooding out.

"My parents abandoned me. I was found by the side of a fucking freeway in Maine in October. I wasn't even a day old. My mom had just tied off my umbilical cord with some string and probably cut it with a pocket knife or some shit. I'd have died of exposure if some kid hadn't found me while looking for his dog. I could have died of an infection if I hadn't gotten antibiotics at the hospital where no one ever came to claim me. So I got stuck in this scummy group home in the crappy part of Boston. A couple took me in when I was about a month old and they'd been planning to adopt me, but then they got pregnant with twins when I was three, so they sent me back.

"I mean, who does that? I called them 'Mommy' and 'Daddy' 'cause I didn't know any better and it right before fucking Christmas! So my first memories are crying at the group home, 'cause I didn't understand why my parents had left me there. But the state gave me their last name anyway, 'cause I was only three and I knew my name, but I was only three so I didn't get that it was there name and they didn't want me. So I got stuck with two names from two parents who abandoned me, and the only person who took any interest in me other the older kids calling me a baby and hiding my blanket was this volunteer guy who brought candy, and at first I thought he was great, but then... we'd go in the other room and he'd say I had to be a big girl and he'd... touch me. I didn't even know it was wrong until I was like... nine or ten at another group home and there was this kid who'd been molested by his dad who was in prison and he tried to kill himself..."

Voice breaking a little, Emma wondered, "What if he's still doing that to other kids? Cause I never told anyone? I don't even remember his name or even really what he looked like, so I figured there was no point. He could be hurting other kids, like that trucker probably goes around raping hitchhikers or some shit. How can anyone believe in magic and fate and destiny and true love when stuff like that happens?"

Henry didn't really know how to react to that. Shocked, horrified, really really sad. He wondered if Emma's previous occupation as a bail bonds person and bounty hunter wasn't just about an easy no-qualifications-required job or even just bringing in deadbeat husbands and dads. Considering that Emma had never lived in one city for longer than a year - save Tallahassee - yet had curiously returned more than once to Boston in the five years before he found her, it seemed plausible that it maybe it had something to do with her past, and some perverted old sex offender she wanted to make sure didn't hurt any more kids. Or maybe that had nothing to do with it, though he wanted to believe that Emma had gotten some kind of justice, even if that wouldn't erase the scars.

No wonder she'd been so messed up by Neverland, Henry considered, and his child-abusing psychopath great grandfather who'd kept Wendy in a cage for centuries. He'd known then that Emma had an abandonment kinship with the Lost Boys, but he hadn't really thought of it going beyond that to any kind of abuse. Of course, he'd been eleven and painfully naive about a lot of things.

"I'm sure someone did, even if you didn't," Henry finally spoke up. "And you didn't know, so you can't blame yourself for not telling anyone, Emma. You were just a little kid. It's the fault of the people who were supposed to be looking out for you."

"Yeah, I don't think any of them ever really cared all that much," Emma sniffed. "Lost and forgotten children and unwanted babies. That's what orphans are."

"You're not forgotten or unwanted Emma," Henry told her. "And everything that's lost can be found again. You'll find a family who loves you and sees how great you are."

"You really think so?"

"Absolutely!" he confirmed, slipping an arm around her. Emma gave him a 'what are you doing?' look just before he hugged her. She tensed up at first, and he wondered if he'd made a mistake, but then she returned the hug, still sniffling a bit.

"I just... I don't want to end up a crazy loser like Ingrid because I grew up wrong."

"You won't," Henry assured her as he pulled back. "You're a good person, Emma. One day you'll have Tallahassee."

Brows furrowing, Emma asked, "Tallahassee? Why would I want a bug-infested swamp?"

Henry just laughed, any further conversation halted by Neal coming through the connecting door with pillows under one arm, an ice bucket in one hand and a cardboard drink holder in the other.

Emma quickly wiped at her eyes, mumbling, "I tried to stand up. I think maybe I made it worse. It was stupid."

"I'm sure it feels worse than it is," Neal said, setting down the assortment of supplies and pulled a cup from the holder. "How about some hot chocolate?"

Emma took the cup, removing the plastic lid and smiled in surprised. "Cinnamon?"

"It's how Henry and his mom like it. I had a hunch you were the same brand of weird," replied Neal with a wink that made Emma blushed.

She quickly ducked her head and took a sip, the warm chocolate and cinnamon-y goodness making things feel just a bit better.

Neal put the pillows on the beds and the ice bucket with homemade ice packs and washcloths on the nightstand before bidding them both good night with a reminder that check-out was ten o'clock.

As Henry got into his bed, Emma spoke up, "Your dad seems nice. And the way he threatened that guy with the gun... Have you noticed that he's kind of hot?"

"Gross. Weird. Complicated," Henry repeated and turned out the light. "Go to sleep."

AN: So, that chapter jumped around from overly dramatic and angsty to a weirdly abrupt close. And, yeah, I pulled the Emma Almost Got Raped/Did Get Molested card. Sorry about that. If you're wondering how Rapist Trucker knew Henry was gay, he overheard him on the phone talking with Hansel over by the bathrooms, which Henry explained in an earlier draft. I figure Neal called in an anonymous tip to the highway patrol. The Candy Man thing was from a short story I recall reading way back in what must have been Season 1 or early 2 and I can't remember the author. And, yes, Neal overheard the conversation; more incentive to quit the emotionally manipulative bullshit bent he's been on, don't you think? Emma's singing "Rock And Roll Heart" from the Lou Reed album of the same name. Henry's final line is from an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer was hypnotized into thinking he was a kid again, to Bart's conflicted amusement and discomfort. And if you're wondering, how the heck does Emma not notice that technology has advanced a shit-load since the 1990s? Hell if I know! Must be magic or that blow to the head!

Next up: Return to Storybrooke. Yeah, I know, that was a lot of hype for such a short roadtrip that was really just a way to employ a cheesy recycled plot device. Funny how that works, huh?