Chapter Thirty-Three
Emma was still storming down the quiet streets of Storybrooke more than an hour after the time that she normally left the sheriff station. It had long since grown dark, and yet she could still so easily see her hot, angry breath clouding the air in front of her. She watched it curl upwards into thin, smoky tendrils, coiling its way through the oddly still night. Eventually it too grew tired and disintegrated completely, vanishing into wisps of air that, once again, left her walking alone.
She bunched her hands into fists and clamped them beneath her arms, scratching her nails over the ragged leather. She wished that she'd thought to wear gloves. Regina always remembered to bring gloves.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to keep moving forwards.
An hour earlier she had found herself stomping furiously over the Toll Bridge, letting her numb feet lead her away from the woman whose voice she couldn't quite get out of her head and towards the town line. It had taken her longer than she had expected. After walking for what felt like days she found herself staring at the familiar rust-eaten sign, her frozen features twitching and her eyes watering in a way that was absolutely and unequivocally only because of the cold. She scrubbed a fist below her nose, ignoring the warm wetness that clung to it, and sniffed. The night smelt smoky, like Storybrooke was burning in the distance. She turned her head and realised with a sigh of annoyance that it wasn't.
Bad things happen to people who try to leave.
She realised with a groan that, as usual, her son was right: she opened her eyes and found that she had stepped over the invisible line completely unscathed. She had been praying for a car to hit her.
Emma reached up and pressed her hands over her eyes, listening to her own breathing as it shuddered from between her ribs. Everything hurt. Every part of her body ached and screamed and all she wanted to do was keep walking, as fast as she could, until the watery sunlight trickled over the horizon in front of her and some other town where no one knew her name was laid out waiting for her.
But instead she turned, bent down, and picked up the biggest rock that she could find. It sailed cleanly through the air and hit the town sign with a reverberating thunk.
Welcome to Storybrooke, it shrieked at her as she shuffled back past it.
'I hit your brother with my car,' she muttered under her breath, the words being carried away on a wisp of smoke. 'I'll be coming back for you.'
She kept her fingers balled up into fists the whole way back into town. By the time that she had reached Mary Margaret's apartment, everywhere was quiet once more.
Her roommate didn't seem to hear her as she walked through the front door. Glancing up at the clock, Emma realised that it was barely seven o'clock – she had arrived home from work later than this a hundred times before. She scrubbed her fist across her face one last time before she turned and shut the door. She heard Mary Margaret pause, then turn around.
'Hey,' she said from across the kitchen. 'I was wondering where you'd gotten to.'
Emma kept her eyes on the toe of her boot as it nudged at a floorboard that jutted out from beneath the door. She swallowed.
'Em?'
It was funny how her voice suddenly sounded so different.
Emma forced herself to turn around, smiling tightly. Mary Margaret faltered when she saw her watery eyes and pink nose. She told herself that it was probably just because of the cold.
'Sorry,' Emma said, stepping into the kitchen. She could feel the heat of the room prickling at her fingers as she rubbed them together. 'I was… I don't know. Somewhere else.'
Mary Margaret laughed, turning back to the stove. 'Anywhere nice? I've been looking for a vacation spot.'
Emma forced a smile. 'Yeah. I'll have to get back to you on that.'
She sidled further into the room, still pulling her jacket tightly around her body, as she watched her roommate darting about the kitchen preparing their dinner. She moved easily, carelessly, with a dopey smile on her face that came from being so effortlessly in love. She was vaguely humming a tune that Emma recognised from being on the radio that morning. She was in every way the person that Emma had said goodbye to nine hours earlier.
Except suddenly, she wasn't. Because suddenly she was dripping with the stupid, hideous words that Regina had thrown at her and quite inexplicably Emma found that she couldn't even look at her without her heart shutting down.
She's the same age as you, you idiot, she scolded herself as she edged towards the kitchen island. Mary Margaret carried on cooking, humming that same song under her breath.
She looked so calm. It was strange in comparison to the trash compactor that was crunching away inside of Emma's head.
Hitching her exhausted body up onto one of the stools – deliberately avoiding the one that Regina normally sat on – Emma crossed her ankles behind the wooden foot rest and slid her hands underneath the backs of her thighs.
This is ridiculous.
Even from across the kitchen, Emma found herself suddenly drawn to the faint hazel-green swirl that was Mary Margaret's eyes.
…you do kind of have my chin.
'Will you tell me about Storybrooke?'
Emma heard herself say the words before she had even thought about them. Mary Margaret turned back to look at her, the pan in her hand hovering just above the heat of the stove. She blinked, and the brown-green crinkled.
'What?' she asked slowly.
Emma wetted her lips, shifting slightly in her seat.
'Storybrooke,' she said quietly. 'Will you tell me about it? About what it was like before I arrived?'
Mary Margaret smiled, her round face quivering with confusion.
'What do you want to know about that for?'
Shrugging, Emma leaned forwards against the counter.
'Just curious,' she said. 'I don't know much about it, I guess… Like, do you remember the first time that you met Henry?'
Mary Margaret beamed immediately.
'Of course,' she said, reaching behind her and switching off the heat. 'He was only a baby. I was working at the hospital, and I held him.'
Emma blinked. 'How old were you?'
She watched as her roommate paused, considering the question.
'Oh,' she said, frowning. 'I don't… I don't quite remember.'
'It was ten years ago,' Emma prompted. 'You must have been pretty young.'
Mary Margaret nodded, looking uncertain. 'I suppose I must have been. I don't know. I just… in my head, I suppose I felt the same as I feel now. I don't remember feeling eighteen. I just remember… Regina handing him to me. And I remember that he was beautiful.'
Emma nodded. 'Okay… so what about Regina? Do you remember the first time that you met her?'
Mary Margaret immediately opened her mouth, still half-smiling at the memory. And then Emma watched as that smile faded, the memory clouding over inside her brain and slipping away into nothing.
There was a pause.
'No,' she said eventually, shaking her head. 'I can't say that I do.'
Emma blinked.
'Regina's a pretty strong character,' she said hesitantly. 'Wouldn't she… I don't know. Wouldn't she make quite a lasting impression?'
Mary Margaret turned back to the stove, stirring the contents of the nearest pan with a shrug.
'I don't know what to tell you, Emma,' she said softly, lifting up the spoon to taste the food. 'Maybe my memory's just not very good. It's all a bit… blurry.'
Emma shook her head.
'But doesn't that seem weird to you?' she insisted, drumming her fingers against the counter. 'I remember my childhood like it was yesterday. Every single day of it. And yet you… you can't even remember this. Can you remember your birthdays? Can you remember your parents?'
She could see Mary Margaret's shoulders tensing up, but she couldn't stop herself. Suddenly all she could think about was Regina's desperate face as she clung onto her hand and begged her to believe her. Begged her to believe in magic and in fairy tales, and in a mother who loved her so much that she let her live her life alone.
I had the strangest feeling that we'd met before.
Something stabbed at Emma's chest. When Mary Margaret finally turned back around again, the perfect heart shape of her chin was all that she could look at.
'I'm sorry, Emma,' she said quietly, still half smiling. 'I'm really sorry – but no. I don't remember any of that. It's just… gone.'
Emma's jaw was wobbling dangerously and she forced it to stay clamped shut. She nodded.
'Just gone,' she repeated. It was possible, really. It was infinitely more possible than Regina's explanation.
But the sound of throbbing hearts had followed her from deep below the ground and, as she stared at her roommate's turned back, it only seemed to get louder. It thundered inside of her head and it banged its fists against the inside of her ribcage.
She watched her mother, who had no memory of her and probably never would, and she listened to the sound of those hundreds of hearts breaking.
Henry sprung up from the dining room table the moment that he heard the front door opening.
Even from the sound of his mother's shuffling footsteps he knew that something was wrong. He walked over to the open door, biting down hard on his bottom lip.
Regina had been crying. That much was blindingly obvious.
She spotted him watching her at once and she swallowed. The same smile that she always seemed to wear tugged sadly at the corners of her mouth as she pulled her coat more tightly around her body, toeing her shoes off in the middle of the hallway. Henry watched her movements, his fingers curling whitely around the doorframe.
He watched as she shook her head. Then she slowly dragged her body up the stairs and down the hallway, shutting herself in her bedroom with the gentle click of a lock.
The house fell silent for a moment. And then Henry was tearing towards the phone, dropping it to the carpet in his haste, before he dialled one of only three numbers that he knew off by heart.
'Hello?'
'August,' Henry hissed, slipping back into the dining room and shutting the door behind him. 'She knows.'
'What?' August said. 'Who?'
'Emma,' Henry said urgently. 'August – she knows.'
There was a pause. And then, '…Regina actually told her?!'
'Yeah, I think so.'
'And?!'
Henry swallowed. 'It's… I don't think that it really…'
He heard August deflating before he had finished either of his sentences.
'Oh,' August groaned, leaning back in his chair. 'Shit. I mean, shoot. Just… oh, God. How's your mom doing?'
Henry sighed. 'She hasn't said anything yet. But she's... she's not good.'
'Shit,' August repeated, running a hand through his hair. He could hear the young boy's desolate sadness through the phone line and he didn't have the slightest clue how to make it any better.
'August, what do I do?' Henry asked after a moment, his voice urgent. He pressed his back against the closed door and let his body slide down to the floor as he spoke.
'You don't do anything, buddy,' August said, forcing himself to sit upright in his chair. 'You've done enough. You've helped your moms wherever you can and that's been amazing – but I think it's up to them now. You can't help them through this.'
'I can't just do nothing!'
'I never said do nothing,' August said firmly. 'You hold your mom when she needs holding. You tell her that things will be okay. You be the kid that helps her to be strong and you hold her upright if she's crumbling. But this isn't on you, Henry – this isn't for you to fix. You're ten. You're… you're not ready for that.'
'Shall I speak to Emma?'
'No,' August said quickly, drumming his fingers against the desk. 'Not yet. She's probably freaking out, kiddo. Big time. She needs time away from everyone – especially Regina. I think if you go and see her, you might just remind her of her.'
Henry let out a sigh that was forceful enough to ruffle his hair.
'So… what are you going to do?'
'Me?'
'Yes. You,' Henry said firmly. 'You're part of Operation Lobster, August. You have to help me. Please. If I'm not grown up enough to do anything then surely you are?'
August swallowed. He'd seen that flash of anger in Emma's eyes when he'd tried to show her his leg, and he wasn't sure that even he was ready to face something that was any worse than that.
'I'll see what I can do,' he said quietly, tracing a groove in the wooden desk with his thumbnail. 'But… she'll be angry, Henry. At all of us. She won't listen to me right away. I'll try – I promise you that I'll try.' He sighed, then continued. 'But... she is going to be angry.'
A/N: So firstly I want to apologise for the massive, massive delay in posting this chapter. Those of you who follow me on tumblr will know that the last few weeks have been a bit shitty for me and so I've really struggled to write anything at all - but SOMEHOW the events of 'Going Home' sort of gave me the inspiration to cure me of this...?! Weird.
Anyway, I also want to say sorry for how short / non-SQ centric this chapter is - I'm not deliberately being a dick, I promise: it was always going to be like this, but I just never planned to make it such an anticlimax after such a horrifically long hiatus. ANYWAY. Thank you all so so so much for actually reading! I'm so grateful that people are still sticking with this :) all my love!