Next morning, Mary Margaret, Henry and I were at the hospital with some kids from Miss Blanchard's class in a volunteer program, I was there more to help Mary Margaret with the kids and to make some company to Henry.
I was helping the teacher to put some flowers around the room when I spotted Henry at the side room, away from everyone, so I called out Mary Margaret and indicated him with the head. She moved to the room where Henry was and I followed her.
"Henry, we need your help with the decoration" She said as she opened the door.
"Is Mr. Doe going to be okay?" He asked as I reached them.
"His name is not John Doe honey" I said as I stopped at the door "That's just what they call people when they don't know who they are"
"Do any of you know who he is?" I shook my head.
"No" She moved to his side "I just bring him flowers when I'm around"
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know, he's been like this since as long as I've been volunteering" She smiled.
"Does he have any family or friends?" She shook her head.
"No one has claimed him"
"So, he's all alone?" He asked.
"Yeah" She smiled sympathetically "It's quite sad"
"You're sure you don't know him?" He insisted.
"Course I'm sure" She looked confused but I knew something was on.
"C'mon kid, you shouldn't be in here"
Henry didn't tell me anything until we reached the castle with Emma, I've tried to pull something from him on the way but he kept shushing me saying that our mother could hear us, like it was absolutely plausible.
"We found your father, Prince Charming" He said opening his book.
"Henry..."
"He's in the hospital, in a coma" He turned his book so we could see the image "See this scar? He has one too"
"So what? A lot of people have scars" She looked at me uncertain.
"In the same place..." I pointed out, and she gave me a look, well I was right.
"Exactly, don't you see what this means?" He looked back at Emma "The curse is keeping them apart with the coma, now they're stuck without each other; you have to tell Ms. Blanchard that we found her Prince Charming"
"Okay kid, telling someone their… soul mate is in a coma is probably not helpful" I didn't want to crush his feelings but sometimes he went out of line.
"She's right Henry, not having a happy ending in painful enough, but giving someone some unrealistic hope is far worse" Emma said.
"But what if I'm right? We know who they are, now they have to know" He insisted.
"And how do you intent to make that happen?" I raised my eyebrows and stared at him.
"By reminding, we have to get her to read their story to John Doe, and then maybe he'll remember who he is" He kept looking back and forth between Emma and I.
"Okay" She said.
"Okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, we'll do it, but my way" She gave me a look and I nodded "Let me ask her"
I woke next morning with a call from Graham saying he would pick me up to help him at a search party and he said it was urgent and that he needed me so I couldn't trail off. I barely had time to change and eat anything before I heard him knocking on the door.
"Sunday, 07:30 A.M., better be worth it" I said as I opened the door and left my room at the hotel and went downstairs and got into the car followed by him "What awaits us today uh? A drunk Leroy again?" I ironized as I threw myself at the passenger's seat.
"Actually no, but that was a great guess" He said as he started driving down the Main Street "More like, missing people"
"Like for real?" Usually nothing of great happened in town, the most wild cases were when someone got drunk, broke into some establishment and passed out inside so… "This isn't like when Henry went missing is it?"
"No, this time a certain patient of the local hospital, which was in a coma, decided to play hide and seek" He parked the car at the hospital's garage.
"So, Mr. Doe is missing?" he nodded "You're lucky that I'm really good at hide and seek"
As we entered the room I could see my mother at the corner, which failed to see me and doctor Whale came up to Graham and I as soon as he saw us to explain what was going on.
"Hey Whale" Graham said "Do you have any idea of what made him just get up and leave?"
"No idea, his medical condition did not insinuate a recover before, but seeing it's records" He handed Graham a file, which was probably Doe's files " it went crazy a few hours ago, what could mean that he actually woke up"
As he said that he moved away from us and Graham told me he would check out outside the hospital for a while and asked me to see what I could take from the staff. I was talking to one of the nurses when my mother noticed that I existed and decided to talk to me.
"So, you've been helping Graham" She approached me slowly "Have you two had any luck?"
"Well, we would be if you weren't intimidating the staff right now" That was true, almost everyone in town was scared of her, after all, she didn't know how to play any character other than the bad bitch that rules the town, or the bow down peasants type of person so… "And that's actually my job; I'm not helping him because I think it's cool"
With that I moved away from her and went to the entrance of the room to meet with Graham that had come back by now.
"Hey Graham, did you find…" I was interrupted by Henry, Mary Margaret and Emma, which rushed into the room out of the blue.
"Henry, just step back" Graham said as he blocked their way.
"What's going on?" Mary Margaret asked as she approached us but all I could notice at the moment was Emma, wearing my mother's shirt "Is it John Doe? Is he okay?"
"He's missing" I managed to get out without laughing, but I still could not process what was going on, but before I could say anything else, my mother came up to us. Okay then, when I come in the room takes about five minutes for her to notice me, but when Emma comes in, she comes as soon as possible.
"What the hell are you doing here? And you…" She pulled Henry to her side "I thought you were at the arcade, are you lying to me?"
"What happened to John Doe?" Mary Margaret asked "Did someone take him?"
"We don't know it yet" Graham answered "His catheters were ripped off but there is no sign for sure that there was struggle"
"What did you do?" Henry asked our mother.
"You think I had something to do with this?" She replied.
"Is curious that the mayor is here…" Emma provoked.
"She's here because she's his emergency contact" I said before shit could go real.
"You know him?" The teacher asked.
"I found him on the side of the road years ago with no I.D., I brought him here" My mother answered.
"The mayor saved his life" Said Whale as he approached us.
"Will he be okay?" Mary Margaret seemed to be the most worried person in the room, but it wasn't my fault that Emma was wearing my mother's shirt and they were both staring angrily at each other.
"Okay? He's been fed by tubes for years with constant supervision" He looked at her sympathetically "He needs to get back right away or 'well' might be a dream"
"Okay, so let's quit talking and start looking" Emma said as she turned away from us and started walking.
"That's what we're doing" My mother said. "Just stay out of this dear; since I clearly can't keep you away from my son, I guess I'll just have to keep my son away from you"
As she said that she grabbed Henry's hand and walked towards Emma so she could face her.
"Enjoy your shirt" Shit "Because that's all you'll get. Sheriff, Olivia, find John Doe, you heard doctor Whale, time is precious" And she just simply left after that, great.
"Do you know how much does a 'goodbye' to your daughter costs nowadays?" I asked Graham, breaking the silence.
"I don't know also, but apparently it's high" He turned to Whale "Doctor, how long it was since the last time you saw him?"
"Twelve hours or so" He answered.
"So that's what we can take on for now" Graham concluded.
After that we decide to check on the security cameras, but apparently Leroy and his little friend weren't helping at all.
"You were the only employees on the floor last night, and you saw nothing?" I asked.
"Not a thing"
"Did anyone walk by?" Emma tried.
"I didn't see anything" Leroy answered.
"Ms. Blanchard did you see anything unusual during your trip with the class?"
"I don't think so"
As I stared at the screen in front of us I noticed that something was off, that wasn't yesterday's tape.
"We're looking at the wrong tape. This is the room we put decoration in yesterday, if this was the tape from last night we would see the banners around" I pointed out as Emma searched for the right tape.
"You fell asleep again" said Leroy.
"You're selling me out?'
"I'm not going to be fired for this!"
"At least I don't drink at the job!"
"Gentleman, enough!" Graham jumped in "Where is the tape?"
As he said that Emma found the tape and put in on. As we watched it we saw John Doe leaving the room by himself.
"Oh, he went out alone" Mary Margaret seemed relieved "He's okay"
"This was four hours ago" Emma pointed at the screen "Where does this door leads?"
"The woods" I answered
We had spent the entire morning and the afternoon looking for John Doe but we got no luck, we found so many tracks but none led to him. I was getting frustrated by now, Mary Margaret was clearly tired, but every time Graham and I tried to talk her down and send her home she refused, Emma seemed worried and treated the situation like she was responsible for it all. Now we were tracking another trail near the river that crossed the forest. I had been quiet for awhile, I'm that kind of person that when I don't have anything important or funny to say, I don't, so I followed the group looking for anything that Graham may have missed out. After a while I saw Graham disperse ahead, while Emma and Mary Margaret were talking and I was behind as I heard something behind me.
"Who's there?" I asked, making the two women turn around, but it turned out that it was only my little brother.
"Henry!" Emma said.
"Did you find him?" He asked, jumping on the conversation.
"No, not yet" Answered the teacher.
"You shouldn't be here" Emma pointed out.
"I can help!" He said it like it was very obvious "I know where he's going!"
"And where's that?" I asked.
"He's looking for you" He said as he looked at Mary Margaret.
"Okay, so… do you have any guess of where he went?" I tried again.
"I'm not sure" Great "Ms. Blanchard, what part of the story did you stop at?"
"What?" She looked at us "I think it was right after they've met…"
"The troll bridge" He shoots.
"Okay, so you think he went to the troll bridge, really?" I asked as Graham came back and jumped in the conversation.
"Hey Henry, you shouldn't be here" he said as Henry rolled his eyes.
"C'mon, at least one of you could come with me" He insisted. I looked at him for a moment and nodded.
"Okay, I'll go with you kid" I said as everyone looked at me, all shocked, I turned to Graham "If anything happens use the walkie, okay?"
"Okay" He nodded and I blinked at the women as I walked away with Henry.
"I'm sure he's looking for Mary Margaret!" He said as we walked towards the bridge "She should have come with us!"
"Yeah kid, I got it…"
"I know you're just doing this to prove a point" He pointed out.
"It's not like that, I just…"
"Thought they didn't need you?" He stopped and looked at me.
"Yeah, kinda" I said as I moved past him towards the river "Anyway, how did you get away from …"
I stopped as soon as I saw something on the water. John Doe. I rushed into the water into his direction.
"Olivia, what is it?" Henry asked from behind.
"It's him! Henry, call Graham on the walkie now!"
It didn't take long for Graham to show up with Mary Margaret and Emma behind him, Emma pulled Henry away.
"Oh my God!" Mary Margaret rushed to my direction "Oh my God!" Calm down woman "Oh my God!"
"I need an ambulance at the old toll bridge!" I heard Graham "As fast as possible!"
I didn't have enough strength to move him alone so it took Graham, Mary Margaret, me and almost Emma to put him straight.
"No, no, no, no, I found you" I heard Mary Margaret "It's going to be okay"
"Help is coming" Graham said to me and I nodded.
"Is he okay?" I heard Henry "Is he going to be okay?"
I heard Emma pull him ever further away, he didn't have to see this. Mary Margaret was desperate beside me; she checked his breath and pulse before trying to reanimate him. He wasn't responding, and after a while I moved to Henry's direction and took Emma's place, but as soon as I stopped at my brother's side I heard Graham saying that he woke up.
"She did it" Henry said "She woke him"
"Yeah kid, she did it…"
It didn't take long to the ambulance to come and take him to the hospital, and we followed with Graham's car but they didn't let us in, so I sat at the waiting room beside the glass wall of the side room, where John Doe was, the others waited at the door. After a while a blonde woman rushed past them and entered the room.
"David!" She said "David, is that you?"
After that I couldn't hear anything said in the room anymore as the door closed again.
"Who is she?" I heard Mary Margaret.
"His wife" My mother said as she walked into the room.
I was so done after that I left the room where everyone was, I didn't have time for drama. I went to the hall and fetched a cup of coffee and stayed there. After a while the same blond woman passed through the door and walked towards me.
"Hello" She said "Olivia, right?"
"Yeah, you?" I asked uncertain.
"Kathryn" She answered "I saw you with the group that found David tonight"
"Oh, right…" I didn't really know what to say to her "So, his name is David. It suits him"
"Yeah..." she paused as she remembered why she was there "I actually came here to thank you, for finding him"
"Oh thanks" I tried to sound as sweet as possible, but that's hard when you're me and when you see your mother and Emma talking on the background while you little brother makes his way to the car by himself "If you excuse me I got to…"
"Oh okay, nice to meet you"
"Nice to meet you too" I said as I walked after Henry but my mother stopped me before I could reach him.
"What?" I turned to face her "I thought you were busy talking to your new girlfriend"
"I'm going to ignore this comment just because I'm in good spirits today and…"
"You? In good spirits? It's easier for me to believe in Henry's fairy tales than that!" I ironized.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry" Unbelievable, that's not my mother, what did you do to her? "And that I want you to come back home, for real"
"Uh…" I bet my face was even more funny then Emma's two days ago when she found me inside her car "Okay…"
With that I went after Henry that had already gone to the car, I sat at the passenger seat.
"Hey!" I said "Guess who's going home today kid"
"It was about time, right?" He said cheerfully, I smiled at him.
"Right"
