Bonjour tout le monde! First I want to say that I'm very sorry to write bad English, but what can I say… nobody is perfect! I know some of you have difficulty to understand few sentences because of that. So… Sorry, sorry, sorry! I promise I do my best! I don't have a beta reader, but anyway… even if I have one, I would not have the patience to wait for its corrections. I hate to read or publish an update about a fic weeks or months later. But right now… good reading!
Chapter 6
Emma knew that the simplest way to find Henry was to find Regina. What had set several weeks to the young boy set only hardly forty eight hours to the sheriff of Storybrooke. To redraw the former mayor was easy. Having no more her memory, the former queen had not considered convenient to hide her tracks. It thus is with a certain apprehension to find herself in front of the brunette that Emma taken the road to Boston.
She had no more than some kilometers and she would be face to face with Regina. She began to have the clammy hands and to feel her heart to beat faster. She anticipated this meeting, wondering how she would react in front of this new Regina, totally amnesic about her past. Luckily the fugue of her son, and the new job by the former queen was a quite good excuse for the sheriff of a little town of Maine.
- Here we are!
She parked her car in front of the building, waited for a few moments, trying to calm down before coming inside.
Of all the identities which Regina could have built up by leaving her past and her memory behind her, Emma wondered why the brunette had chosen to take care of young people in difficulties. Maybe the desire to fill unconsciously the absence of her son? Or she wanted to do good things after having hurt so much people?
When she crosses the threshold of the center, she was struck by the tags which decorated walls. It was not graffiti as we could see on most of the walls of big cities. No, it was magnificent drawings in which we could feel the frustration, love, anger of his author. She was totally hypnotized by this excess full of colors inside a place which we imagined rather austere.
- Magnificent don't you think?
Emma jumped. She had not noticed the presence of the young lady which was beside her. When she turned to the voice, she remained motionless, her green eyes completely lost in those of the person who faced her. She felt her blood left her veins, her legs weakened and shied away under her. Before she understands what arrived at her, the manager in a fast movement held her by the waist to avoid her to fall.
- Are you okay? Regina asked softly.
- Huh… yes… yes. I am sorry. The trip to here had to tire me more that I thought, she says smiling to her interlocutor.
Regina smiled back. Emma didn't manage to remove her eyes from the manager's. God that Regina seemed in peace and happy, she thought.
- Do I have anything on my face?
- Huh?
- Well… you don't stop fixing me then I ask …
- No… not! Sorry. I assure you that I don't usually behave like that.
Emma felt ill at ease and she felt the heat gained her cheeks.
- Don't worry, it would seem that lately I arouse this kind of behavior at certain people, she answered in stressing her smile.
- …
- So…what can I do for you Miss…
- Swan… Emma Swan!
- Nice to meet you Miss Swan. I am Regina Mills manager of this center. That is worth us the honor of your presence?
- To make a short story I am in search of somebody.
- Oh… I see. Follow me. We'll be better in my office.
While she walked behind the manager, Emma could not refrain from detailing the silhouette of the former mayor of Storybrooke. She was not used to see Regina in simple jeans and shirt. She smiled by thinking that this relax style was rather well. She had always found that Regina was a beautiful woman, and if it was not her past as the evil queen that stuck on her she would have probably started a new life for a long time. It is because of her, the Savior, that this beautiful woman was alone and without memory. She had stolen from her, her last chance to start a new life and to have her happy end by coming back Marianne to Robin. She felt a tear flowed on her cheek that she hurried to wipe away while the brunette turned to her to let in her.
- Please Miss Swan, take a seat.
- Emma… call me Emma, please?
- Well, in this case call me Regina. Anyway everybody here call me Regina!
- Even your teenagers? The blonde asked.
- Even them… I'm chocking you?
- Huh… no… yes … I mean how do manage you to command respect if you don't put distance between them and you?
Now it was Regina who looked at the blonde sat in front of her. It emanated from this young woman something that the manager could not to catch. A sort of strength, tenderness but also an immense sadness.
- The respect has nothing to do with the fact of calling a person by its first name. It is something that we win.
- …
- Well… Emma… Why do you think that I can help you in your search?
- Because…I search a teenager about 14 old years who ran away few days ago. And I think he came here, in Boston.
- And in this story you are…
- I'm the sheriff of the town where he came from.
- Why don't you go to the police station?
Regina was right. Whoever would have begun the investigation by inquiring with law enforcement? She had to find something and fast.
- I wanted to avoid frightening him by putting the police on him.
The brunette raised an eyebrow, little convinced by the argument of the blonde. However she didn't make comment.
- And when I learnt the existence of this center I said to myself that maybe one of your boarders could have met him…
- You know our teenagers have to follow instructions and very strict schedules. The only times when they are outside it is to go to the school. From the end of the courts they have to come back here immediately.
- I see… but maybe that on the way to the school …
Regina rolled her eyes. God, this blonde is stubborn.
- Look… I agree to help you. Do you have a picture?
Emma showed a picture of Henry she kept affectedly in her wallet.
- It's the only one that I have.
She handed it to the manager. By recognizing her last boarder she had a movement of surprise that did not seem to notice by the sheriff. She wanted to learn a little more on this Emma Swan and on her protégé before telling her that Henry was within her establishment.
- I'll do my best. Je ferai de mon mieux. But I prefer to warn you that our young people help each other. Thus please, don't hold it against me if I don't obtain any information concerning your runaway.
- Thank you. I am going to stay a few days in the town to continue my searches. Here is my phone number. Don't hesitate to contact me whatever is the hour, the day as the night.
Both women got up and went towards the office's door. When Regina opened the door, Alexandra was held behind, the fist in the air ready to knock, Henry by her side.
- MOMMY!?
Emma raised eyes, to discover her son who was held in front of her. She turned immediately to the manager, the eyes filled with anger.
- You lied to me! She shouted.
- It is the pot calling the kettle back! And you, you consider to have been completely honest with me! Regina roared.
- You didn't have the right of…
- Of what? To hide you that Henry was here! Oh that if, I completely had the right! These young people are under my responsibility and they trust me. No, but… for whom what is that you take yourselves? You land here, you lie to me, and it would be necessary that I… that I … damn it… anyway I have no explanation to give you!
- Oh YES! You're going to…
- STOP! STOP BOTH!
Surprised by Henry's intervention, both women turned to the teenager, slightly shameful to have behaved like that and to have to let their anger get the upper hand.
Alexandra, had observed the scene with round eyes still wondering what had just taken place.
- I am sorry Henry. I should never have become enraged like that, Regina says.
- So do I… I'm sorry kid.
- Alex, it's late. If you brought Henry with you, while her mother and I finish our discussion.
The young teenager still bewildered only answered by a nod, before pulling Henry far from the next shrugs of tone between both women.
They stared during long minutes, gauging as boxers before beginning their fight.
- Look Miss Swan…
That's it, here is the return of "Miss Swan". She maybe lost the memory but apparently certain habits have the hard life, thought Emma.
- I propose you that we leave it there for now, before one of us pronounce words which will overtake her thought.
- You are probably right. Anyway I am tired after all this road, the sheriff added. I know that you probably have to hate me, but could you advise me a not too expensive and close hotel from here?
- First I don't hate you at least not completely and in case you would not have noticed it this center is not really situated in a very tourist place, then about hotel …
- Ah… ok… I see. Thank you anyway.
The blonde already was getting back to its vehicle when the manager caught up her.
- Where… where are you going to sleep? Regina asked bothered.
- Well, there inside, she says indicating her old yellow beetle.
- What? In this heap of scrap?
Emma smiles. Memory or not, the former queen did not still like her car.
- I can know what makes you smile?
- Huh… nothing, nothing. But just to moderate your fears, know that it will not be the first time and probably not the last one that I will sleep there inside.
Regina bit her lower lip. Inside she felt that she was probably going to regret it but she didn't manage to intend to let the blonde spend the night in this machine.
- Look, I live in five minutes by feet from here and I have guest's room.
- What? After what has just taken place, you offer me to accommodate me?
- I know… my big heart will lose me Miss Swan!
- Emma… call Emma please.
- So… do you want this bed or not Miss… Emma?
Xxx
- Wow! It was what that? Alex exclaimed as soon as she was alone with Henry.
- It was my mother!
- Shit, buddy! I had never seen Gina in such anger! That promises …
- Yep, like you say!
- Well… you explain!
- Explain what?
- Huh… this crap!
- It's complicated.
- Come on Henry, please, the teenager begged.
- You swear to keep the secret?
- I promise!
- First, tell me what you know about the manager.
- What report?
Henry raised an eyebrow to make understand to the girl that if she wanted to know his story she had to fill his curiosity.
- Well, she arrived here little before I land approximately six months ago, for the good of all moreover. The former manager was a real idiot, a sick person of authority and physical punishments. She became our savior. She doesn't consider us as simple number of file or as pariah of the society. She tries to know who we are, where we come from and why we ended here in this center for delinquents. She believe in us and in a future for us. She always says that we have the right at our happy end, all of us.
At this moment, Alexandra let escape a sigh
- We would also like to give her an happy end, she pursued.
- What do you mean?
- Regina is amnesic. The only souvenirs that she has, are the ones that she built up itself for these last six months.
Both young people remained silent a few moments.
- Your turn now!
- Here is … Emma that you saw, is my biological mother. She gave up me in my birth.
- Such a bitch!
- What? No, no… you are not there. She made it for my good, to put all chances on my side. I don't want it to her anymore. We spoke about it and I understood that she had made for me. She gave me in adoption, and I had thanks to her a rather pleasant childhood. A few years ago, for diverse reasons, I felt the need to put me in its search. I found her and brought with me. You imagine that it did not make the happiness of my foster mother, nor that of Emma. My foster mother was afraid that Emma takes me back, and Emma … well… she had not intended to see me reappearing in her life after so many years. In brief, they fought, quarrelled of so numerous times as I stopped counting. Then things began to settle, and they began to form certain ties until a certain day.
- What happened?
Alex literally drank in the words of the young boy.
- My foster mother saw a man recently, and I was really happy for her because it had been a long time since I had seen her like that. Things seemed to settle for her, Emma and me. I almost had the impression that we were a real family, certainly a little bit strange, but a family anyway. And then Emma after a job of investigation is come back with a woman. This one had been let for dead by her aggressor. He was always on the run, and then Emma wanted to put her in safety in our town for the biggest misfortune of my mother. Because this woman was not other thing than the wife of my foster mother's boyfriend. He too thought she was dead. Emma had not made it to hurt but my mother was so sad and angry to understand it. And then, one evening my foster mother left the city. I guess that she wanted to leave all of this behind her. She thus confided me to my biological mother.
- Well… which story! But then, what is your secret? Because your story is interesting but the problems between the parents you are not the only one to live with.
- I love my two moms. My foster mother dedicated herself to me during ten years. She loved me, took care, educated. I thus decided to leave to find her and this is why I am in Boston.
- OK… but why you have not been to find her instead of making bullshit and finding you to lock here?
- I had to come in this center and to meet the manager.
- No… don't tell me … Regina knows your mother! Shit! But how are you going to find her? She remembers nothing from her past.
- The truth is that Regina is my foster mother!
To be continued…