Snow dabs a napkin against her mouth and then dives into her mayonnaise-soaked pickles again. "Sorry," she says to Regina's repulsed expression. "I think I must have been halfway to scurvy in the missing year with the way I've been craving–" She sticks another one in her mouth. "You have no idea how good these are. Emma?" She pushes the plate forward. Emma looks at Regina, alarmed.
Regina says delicately, "I ordered Emma a grilled cheese. Why don't we…start her…on that." She peers at Emma out of the corner of her eye and Emma nods quickly, her shoulder bumping against Regina's and lingering there.
They're…Emma doesn't know what they are right now, not since yesterday, when they'd walked away from the pier with their fingers half-tangled together. Last night, they'd done dinner with Henry and then watched a movie on the magic mirror structure, and they'd focused on that. After he'd left, Emma had insisted that they go through Regina's spellbooks to find answers.
They haven't found a memory potion that can penetrate a curse– just for Henry, Emma had insisted, but Regina had watched her with suspicion– and they still haven't found a way to remove the cuff, short of consulting with the Blue Fairy. But they'd sat up late in Regina's study, Emma sprawled out on the couch and Regina seated behind a table, and the tension had come and gone.
And now morning is here and Regina is reluctantly agreeing to make an appearance in town for breakfast because Emma had asked, nothing more. They're still sitting apart while Snow is nearly on top of David across from them, but now their arms are against each other's in the booth and Emma warms at the sensation. "I'm going with Regina's food," she announces, and Snow pouts.
"My midwife says that there's probably nothing I'm going to crave that's inedible," she says glumly.
Emma's eyes widen. "Probably?" She hadn't had the luxury of cravings for most of her pregnancy, not when she was locked up in the Dark Castle and nourished only at the whims of a terrifying spider. She doesn't know if she'd been craving food or just hungry.
"Midwife?" Regina perks up, and Emma thinks of Kalla too. "Who have you been using?"
"She's new in town from the second curse– Henry!" Snow says, twisting to beam at him anxiously as he emerges from the back hall of the tavern.
Henry doesn't seem to notice what she'd said, thankfully. "Hi, Moms." His eyes are on Emma and Regina. He's looking at the way they're sitting, side-by-side and unintentionally flush against each other, and this boy who doesn't even remember them is grinning like he can read them already. "Are we still going to the stables today?"
Emma nods just as Regina shakes her head. "You're going to the stables," she says, nudging Emma. "I have some research to do." Her smile is gentle and knowing, and Emma can see wistfulness in her eyes. I don't want to keep you from getting to know each other, she'd said last night, and it had been a non sequitur amongst the lazy researching. Emma had had to keep herself from lashing out and pointing out– you've already kept us from that– but she's still surprised now at what Regina's offering.
"Are you–"
There's a crash from Granny's counter and they all look up, catching a blur of orange hair as the woman who'd dropped her plate crouches and whirls around, nearly whacking the Blue Fairy in the head in the process. "There's my midwife!" Snow says cheerfully, and Emma takes that in as she crosses the room to grab the woman by the arm and drag her back toward the bathrooms.
"You!" she hisses, the pieces finally fitting together. Of course. Of course.
"Let go of me!" Zelena hisses back, glancing toward the front of the tavern with a twitchy glare. "What have you done? How is she–?" She looks wild, awed and furious at once.
Emma stares at her, her fingers still tight around her arm, and she breathes, "You," again with building relief. "You cast this curse." She hadn't thought Zelena would even have been here– not after the dramatics of the flying monkeys and the castle and all the indications that Zelena with power isn't a Zelena who knows how to manage low key– but if she is, that means they have another suspect other than Regina.
"I did not!" Zelena sputters, her face clearing up. "I had nothing to do with Re– with the Evil Queen's little kingdom here." She leans forward, and every inch of Emma knows that she's lying. "I want to live my quiet life at last in this world, away from you and your kind, and if you ever breathe word of me to–"
"Emma?" Zelena vanishes in a flash of green smoke just as Regina rounds the corner, Henry trailing behind her. "Is everything all right?"
Emma manages a smile. "It's fine," she says, and her jaw sets with determination.
Behind Regina, she sees Henry's jaw set in the exact same motion as he watches her.
"So Mom doesn't ride?" Henry wants to know as they make their way down to the stables. They'd taken a brief detour into the woods to where the Merry Men have an encampment of cabins, and now they're finally ready to go riding.
"Oh, no. Your mom is very accomplished. Showy," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. "Not nearly as good as I am at navigating a forest. But I'm sure she'll be out there next time with us, doing hurdles to impress you."
"Cool." Henry brightens. "So which one do I get to ride?"
There are three horses out in the paddock, Lancelot's and Rocinante and…"Beetle!" Emma calls out, whistling long, and her horse lets out a low neigh and trots to them. He's looking a bit worn. Maybe it's losing nine months of gradual aging. Maybe it's the years finally beginning to catch up on him with the added stress of the curse. But he chews happily on her hair and she leans against him, inhaling the scent of home.
Behind him comes Rocinante, who sniffs Henry's hand and then positions himself at Henry's side. Henry gapes up at him, utterly intimidated.
"That's Regina's horse," Emma says, rubbing a hello along his mane. "I don't think you're ready for Rocinante just yet." Instead, they find him a mild-mannered cob who trots comfortably beside Beetle across the field.
Henry hangs on, his forehead screwed up in concentration as he focuses on following Emma's directions. "Were you riding when you were my age?"
Emma laughs. "Oh, god, no. Your mom grew up on an estate. She was probably riding as an infant. I was an orphan with…foster parents…" She catches the master just in time. (Regina had spent half the morning lecturing her on what she can and can't reveal about her past, and how she can package the rest of it. She'd rolled her eyes but promised to make an attempt.) "Anyway, I did run away from home when I was a little older than you. But before that, I don't think I'd ever been on a horse."
"When did you get Beetle?"
Emma leans to the side, just enough so she can lower her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Don't ever tell Regina I told you this or we're both going to have to sit through endless lectures."
Henry nods solemnly.
"I went out one day after I'd gotten out, went back to my old foster brother's place. He had two horses, and after his father died, he'd shoved them into cramped stables and neglected them." Beetle had been only a foal then, still not quite full grown. Emma had broken into the stables and freed him and his mother, and she'd let the other Merry Men find the mother in the woods and kept the foal close, looking after him until he was undoubtedly her own. "So I stole him."
"Awesome!"
"Don't let your mother hear you say that, either." Emma heaves an exaggerated sigh. "She used to nag me so much about the stealing. You'd think that I'd done it for fun."
Henry eyes her speculatively. "Did you?"
"No! Sometimes," she admits, grinning at him. He grins back.
This is easier than it had been before, when she doesn't feel as though she's trying all the time. There's no need to pretend as much, to struggle to fit into Regina and Henry's dynamic. She can have her own dynamic with Henry, separate but by no means without Regina's influence on them.
Whatever wrongs Regina had done in the past, they're slowly beginning to pick up the pieces, and Emma's gratified to know that she isn't doing it alone. Regina is on her side this time, no matter how hard it is to fully believe that. Regina is just as determined for them to be a family as the rest of them are.
And Emma's going to do her part in that.
At lunchtime, they unpack their basket from Granny's and pick through the sandwiches and drinks. Henry blinks down at the assortment. "I know that I'm a growing teen and all that, but I really don't need six sandwiches."
"I got one of each on the menu," Emma says sheepishly. "I didn't know what you'd like. And…" She takes a deep breath, hating that she has to do this. "I'm actually expecting some friends."
"Friends?" Henry's eyes are narrowed at once, seeking out and finding the guilt on her face. "You're ditching me."
Emma chews on her lip, as unhappy as he is. "Look, here's the thing. I want to. I do. But there's something I've got to look into, for all our sakes. John and Lancelot and Mulan are all pretty badass," she offers, mostly to sneak a smile onto her son's mulish face. Instead, the stubbornness just gets more fierce. "They'll be fun to ride with."
"I'm coming with you."
"You absolutely are not. It's much too dangerous."
Henry scowls at her. "Come on, you just told me that you ran away from home when you were about my age! I can go out with my mom on some secret mission."
"Henry, this isn't a game. The person I'm investigating could be–"
"The redheaded lady from the diner," he puts in, and Emma's impressed despite herself. "I'm not stupid, Ma. I saw the way you panicked when you saw her."
Emma sighs heavily, squinting out into the distance until she spots Lancelot and Mulan arriving at the stables. "If I'm right, she's someone who's done an immeasurable amount of damage to us all. I can't risk you coming with me."
"I'm Swan Hood's son. I think I'll be okay," he says, rolling his eyes, and Emma starts.
"What?"
Henry lets out an exasperated noise. "You took me out on the Jolly Roger with a hook-handed captain yesterday. Belle runs the library. Lancelot? Mulan? And Mom says you rob the rich and give to the poor. I asked around." He rolls his eyes. "Okay, fine, I asked Mary Margaret when she was in a pregnancy daze. I'm not stupid," he repeats. "What is this place, some kind of feminist Disney reality show? Am I the only one who doesn't know? Are you really my moms?" he says, suddenly alarmed.
Emma stares at him, pride rising in her throat again. This is her son, insightful and clever and brave. This is the boy Regina had raised. She swallows hard, the words damp as they emerge. "Of course we are. And you're a little smartass, aren't you?" The insult lacks any bite, and Henry softens and flushes at it.
"Yeah," he agrees. "I am. And you know that if you don't let me come, I'm just going to follow you anyway, right?" He smirks at her and she sees another boy's smirk superimposed upon it, a kid not much older than Henry who'd been her determined tag-along for as long as she'd grudgingly allowed it. Quinn, who'd demanded from her respect and honestly. Quinn, who's gone now because she'd once been reckless and a victim of self-imposed loneliness.
"Don't you dare tell Regina," she warns him. "You do that and she kills me. Then you. Then me again," she says ruefully, reaching out to cuff his ear. He makes a face. "But in…where I'm from, you're not that young, I guess." There's a hollowness to that admission, that she'd already missed the years where he'd only been a fragile child to protect, but Henry pounces instead on the where I'm from.
"So it's real?" he asks wonderingly.
"It's real," Emma concedes. "Not a… show of any kind. I've only just crossed over into this land."
"So who are we we tracking down?"
"Her name is Zelena. She's a witch–"
Henry leans forward. "Awesome! Like Maleficent? The Evil Queen?"
"Not the Evil Queen," Emma says hastily. That's a conversation for another day. "She's just…a witch. She's turned two of my men into flying monkeys."
"Three," Mulan says grimly, kneeling down beside Emma to peer into the picnic basket. She pulls out a sandwich and tosses another two to Lancelot. "Little John got too close to the town line and he was taken. Next thing we know, he's transforming."
Oh. Emma's already-fragile heart tightens a little more at that revelation. She hasn't been close to Little John in a long time, not like she's bonded with Lancelot and she can see the stirrings of something with Mulan, but they're family, and he's the first one to have ever given her a home. And now he's been hurt following her orders.
"We found her house by following Little John out," Lancelot offers, dropping to the ground, and Emma turns her attention back to him. "Looks abandoned for now. I have no idea where she's hiding out."
"We'll go take a look," Emma decides. "Henry's coming with me."
"Operation Cobra is a go," Henry agrees, beaming at her. She's momentarily helpless under the force of that smile, as potent as Regina's. Damn. "We can ride another time, right?" He turns hopefully to Lancelot and Mulan, the beginnings of a healthy amount of hero worship written across his face. "If this whole Swan Hood thing really is real, I'm going to have to be a Merry Man," he informs them.
"You've been a Merry Man since you were a little tyke riding around in the woods on my shoulders," Lancelot says, eyes twinkling.
Henry gapes at him and says, "Awesome," yet again.
The grounds around the farmhouse have been trod on in the past few days, and not just by Emma's Merry Men. Other shoes have flattened the ground in some places and shifted the dust in others, and Emma eyes a set of double doors that lie flat on the ground. "She's been down here. Stay close."
She picks the lock on them and peers around, a hand loose on Henry's as they descend into a cellar. "Midwife, my ass." The room is set up like the Dark One's secret room had been, vials and potions on one small table and a few stacks of paper on a second one. Emma flips through one pile and Henry takes a second one.
They work in silence for a minute, putting aside notes that make no sense and peering through books, and Henry ventures, "Okay, so not feminist Disney reality show?"
"Nope."
"But something Disney." Henry considers. "Wait, Robin Hood is some British legend, right? You don't sound British. Are you British?"
"I…don't think so?" Emma opens a spellbook and scowls at the foreign symbols in place of text. Regina has the same elvish in the books Emma's looked through, and she insists that Emma won't be able to read it without magic.
Henry persists. "That doesn't make sense, unless someone just…squashed together all the stories? Why would they do that?"
"I don't know, Henry." There's a colorful paper stuck between two of the books, and she tugs hard until it's freed. "Maybe someone's just been telling stories about our world. Biased ones," she adds, grimacing at the thought of that terrible book from yesterday. "Ones that only tell one side of…"
Emma frowns at the picture she's just uncovered. It's a smaller version of a family portrait, Regina a tiny girl scowling at the artist as Henry Sr. rests a hand on her shoulder. Cora stands with them, her chin raised. "Hey, kid, take a look at this. These are your grandparents."
"Really?"
"Your grandfather was one of the only ones who could calm you down when you were a baby." She bites back the grief that comes from thinking of him and what Regina had taken from herself and Henry. Not today. Today we move forward. "You two would have been good friends now if he was still around."
Henry looks solemnly at the page, studying the faces on it. "Why does the Wicked Witch of the West have this?"
"I don't know. Know your enemy, I guess." The third stack on the table has a folder on top of it, and Emma opens it gingerly. "Huh." They're…photos of some sort, mostly black with what looks like some kind of elaborate design of grey.
"Sonograms," Henry says to Emma's confusion. "You said she was a midwife, right? These are pictures of babies before they're born."
And now that Emma knows it, she can kind of imagine a profile of a face on the photo. "I…don't think that's how babies look in the womb."
"They don't have anything like that in your– in our world?"
"Well, I saw you in a vision." She'd known who he'd be, what he'd be called, and she's lived a thousand lifetimes of false memories with him. None of it compares to having the real boy standing beside her now, staring at her like he might laugh at the absurdity of her response, and she blinks back the tears that spring up. "Oh, please. Like these sono-grams make any more sense than that?"
He must hear how choked up she is because he furrows his brow and says, "What's wrong?"
She musses his hair. "Absolutely nothing," she says, and a tentative smile creeps onto his face as he looks down at the photos again.
"Hey," he says suddenly, and the smile vanishes. "Hey! Look at this. This is weird." He holds up a second sonogram, his thumb on the writing in the corner. "Aurora Rose. That's the mom's name. And here's the date it was taken, two days ago, and here's the due date. But this one–" He picks up the first. "It has the same due date, but it's a different baby. Look at the name." His face pales. "Mary…Margaret Blanchard."
"Midwife, my ass," Emma mutters again, but she can feel the stirrings of worry within her. "It's a weird coincidence for such a small town, I guess," she acknowledges. "But not unheard of."
Henry gives her a long look. "The Wicked Witch of the West has suddenly taken up a new job and it's for two babies who might be born the same day? Just two babies," he amends, spreading open the folder. "This is only Aurora and Mary Margaret's information."
And there's something about both women that niggles at the back of Emma's mind, something they both share beyond castles and fairy godmothers and sleeping curses…
Sleeping curses…
"True love babies," Emma whispers in dawning horror. "Zelena's after true love." True love can be bottled and turned to magic, can break curses and change the very rules of the world in the right hands. And children born to parents who share true love are said to have magical potential beyond measure. "Henry, you need to go now. Take your horse and ride back to the house. Get Regina." She presses the sonograms into his hands. "Tell her everything. I'm going to look around some more."
She sends him off, watching to be sure he's made it off the property before she heads for the front door of the farmhouse.
The house is dusty and barely touched, and Emma can follow the tracks in the dust upstairs. They split, moving into each of the two bedrooms on the floor.
There are no signs of life in the bedroom on the right, but for a wand resting across the desk in the corner and a sprinkle of fairy dust that wafts from it. Emma touches it, cautious, and she thinks she hears a breathy laugh. When she whirls around, there's no one behind her. When she whirls back, the wand is gone.
"Okay," she says slowly, goosebumps erupting on her arms. "Okay, I'm just…going to go downstairs." She can still hear the breathing, low and somehow familiar and alien at once, and she edges slowly out the door, sliding it closed.
The moment it's shut, she slams it open again with her foot, a crossbow in her hands and firing in the direction of the breathing. Her arrow flies true and hits someone, and there's a flicker of energy and Emma can the woman at last.
She looks like a kindly grandmother, blonde hair so pale that Emma can't tell where it's fading into grey, plump and rosy-cheeked and with a smile on her face that doesn't match the hardness in her eyes. Emma's never seen her before and yet she can still sense a familiarity to her, a visceral recognition at her gaze. And an instant later, there's a flash and she's gone from the room. "Who–"
And then comes the chittering of flying monkeys somewhere above her and Emma flees, running down the stairs as the ceiling itself opens up and the monkeys pour in. They bear down on her and she fires at them, again and again and again, missing half the time as she slides down the stairs and struggles for a better angle.
"That's enough!" comes the command from behind her, and Emma sags with relief as Regina steps forward, some kind of rifle in hand. "I'm about to make some really terrible puns about you and monkeys," she informs Emma.
"Thanks for the warning. I'll duck for cover."
Regina gives her a reprieve. "I can't believe you gave up time with our son just to play hide-and-seek with the Wicked Witch of the West!" She fiddles with the miniature rifle. "How the hell does this thing work?"
Emma takes it from her, aiming it and squeezing the trigger. There's a bang! and the monkeys scatter and flee as Emma smacks her head against a wall from the whiplash. "Ow!"
Regina lets out a long-suffering sigh and snatches the weapon back, pointing and firing with enough (sloppy, Emma thinks grudgingly) precision to send the rest of the monkeys flapping away.
"Where did this come from?" Emma demands, seizing it again.
"Thank you, Regina, for saving my sorry ass from a dozen of my fellow simians," Regina corrects her.
Emma rolls her eyes. "Thank you, Regina, for providing me with a weapon to save your sorry ass," she retorts. "Where did you get it?"
"The sheriff. I had him follow you all day." Regina cocks an eyebrow. "I know better than to underestimate the lengths you'd go to to kiss me."
Emma can't help but grin at the way that Regina's eyes dance, challenging, at the comment. "Please. As if you've ever been any better." Her head is still aching but she feels lighter here, after a day with Henry and with Regina fighting beside her; and she still hasn't figured out where they stand but she can live with this.
With the monkeys gone, she turns to the next room, squinting into the dark at a shelf of unlabeled bottles. "So, do you believe me yet that you didn't cast the curse?"
"I still don't know why this cuff is on or why our hearts are…" Regina's voice trails off. "I don't believe it just yet. But I'm getting there."
"You're so stubborn." Emma puffs out a goodnatured sigh.
Regina leans back against the shelf, rolling her eyes. "This coming from you."
Emma moves forward, slowly and calculatingly as though she's still Swan Hood in the Evil Queen's castle, making a point of invading Regina's personal space. She can feel Regina's eyes on her, hooded and hungry as she awaits Emma, and Emma presses her lips together to suppress a smirk and reaches behind her for a bottle.
She takes a step back and Regina narrows her eyes at her, unimpressed at the maneuver. "That's a bottle of whiskey, Emma. If we're not doing the magic spell where we wind up taking turns over the toilet the next morning, we don't have any use for it."
"Speak for yourself. I just want to steal her stuff," Emma shrugs, trying for an endearing grin. It's built-in instinct at this point, robbing the assholes in life. And Zelena is a particularly magnificent asshole.
"You have a great future in kleptomania. I can't wait to see what you taught our son today."
"Hey! We're going to return the horse, okay? And Beetle's mine. Really, the stables stole him."
"A horse." Regina pinches the bridge of her nose. "You had Henry steal a horse."
Emma scoffs, seeing right through her. "Don't even pretend you weren't charmed when you saw him riding up to the house to get you."
"I might've–"
"Ha!"
Regina shakes her head, her eyes darkening. "I might've if I'd been there," she corrects Emma. "Remember, I was with the sheriff, tracking you. I knew you were up to something, and I wasn't going to let you face it alone." She tugs at the cuff on her wrist in frustration. "Are you telling me that Henry is alone somewhere in this town with a witch on the loose?"
"Oh, no," Zelena says from the shadows. They both wheel around. Zelena is lounging in the corner as though she's been there all along– has she? Emma doesn't know– and Henry is struggling in her grasp, his hands scrabbling ineffectually at the arm Zelena has around his neck. She smiles. "No worries. Auntie Zelena is on call as your new babysitter."
"Zelena–" Emma begins, panic rising in her throat.
"Zelena?" Regina repeats disbelievingly.
Zelena squeezes tighter and Henry turns helpless eyes on them, speaking at last like it's the first time he's been allowed to. "Moms," he croaks. "I don't think I'm cut out for feminist Disney." The bottle of whiskey falls to the floor and shatters.
Emma snatches her crossbow and aims it at Zelena.
But it's too late like this, without Regina's magic or any other weapons or allies to come. Emma's fingers waver at Zelena's serene expression. She can't risk hurting Henry, and Zelena knows it.
"A boy without his mind," Zelena coos, patting Henry on the head. "How could I resist?"