Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
Note to Mir: I'm glad you like the change in cover art. I felt the transition from absurd dark humor to a lighter (mostly) tone for Part 2 called for a change. I have been rewatching Fringe lately, and while OUAT has their creepy field of fuck flowers that always seem to symbolize betrayal no matter how much the show tries to say otherwise, Fringe had its field of white tulips where Peter and Olivia met as children, and the tulip remained a thematic symbol of the quest for redemption and forgiveness, from it's place on the original Peter's headstone to the very end when Peter receives Walter's paper tulip, mailed before their tragically beautiful parting of ways. Fringe is the show that OUAT should have emulated with how it addresses all of the same topics, especially family and romance, so it's my inspiration for this story.
On the character label front, I agree, they need an Multiple Character option. On the *plus* side, though, I get shade from CS/Hookers every time I have a Hook chapter and post his character in the list and they are shocked to discover he's not portrayed as a heroic demi-god. (Oh, boo hoo you spoiled little shits. Go back to your Twilight rewrites!).
Note to Miss in Minn: You can Google my nom de plume. It's more often spelled Meretseger or Mertseger. I chose it maybe 15 years ago for a Harry Potter forum. I don't recall why I spelled it differently, if that was intentional or I went by a site that misspelled it when I looked up anything snake-related. I selected the Egyptian serpent goddess, I think because I was pissed at some Gryffindor-named member at the time, and intended but never did publish any Harry Potter stories, all of them unfinished on my computer's hard drive. Even though I parted ways with the Harry Potter fandom after the last book left me disappointed, I kept the name just because I am lazy. No worries on the Baby Neal front. He absolutely won't be named "Graham" or after any other character on the show. I want original suggestions, not namesakes. And if no one provides one more fitting than the one I have in mind, I'm going with my muse.
PART II
CHAPTER FIVE
BLACK-EYE
Someone was hogging the covers.
That was Emma's first thought as she started to wake in a chilly motel room with a thin coating of frost on the windows that presumably, her sleep-fogged mind supplied, had nothing to do with a frightened young ice queen... though there was always the Snow Queen possibility, a confrontation she didn't really relish, though having memories that she shouldn't have had would give her an edge when she finally got around to it.
For now, though, Emma just wanted to stay here, curled up on a lumpy bed at Granny's and away from the world and responsibilities and people she would have to face to whom she couldn't actually explain that she'd died in a future in a universe that didn't exist anymore after making a laundry list of bad, often selfish, sometimes downright villainous choices that had hurt people, hurt them, hurt her, made a complete mess of things.
Well, maybe not being able to - or having no reason to - tell them was a relief. But it was also an added burden that made her wonder if this is what Gold felt like after getting that clairvoyance, the knowing, but not really knowing, because now everything was changed... by being unchanged.
She would have to get up eventually, though. Zelena had vanished and was presumed dead since they were all alive, which meant Regina had probably taken Robin home with her, which meant Henry had probably gone to the Loft with her parents... which meant this morning he would be regretting sharing a small and autistic space with a newborn and probably wondering where she'd gone after the party and worrying that she'd gone up to Hook's room, because she'd done a shit job at shielding him from her sleazy flirtations with his own step-grandfather.
This time around she was going to be a better mom, she was going to stop worrying about how much of the year in New York was her and some fake personality transplant from Regina's memories and just be present in her kid's life, because he was going to grow up so fast and she'd miss it all.
But she just wanted a few more minutes...
BANG BANG BANG
"SWAN! SWAN OPEN UP!"
Emma swore and pulled the pillow over her head as she realized Hook was banging on the door to her room down the hall.
The knocking and bellowing was followed by the distinctive sound of a hook being used to break off a door knob and she rolled her eyes. Seriously, the guy was like obsessively psychotic... which probably explained her grandmother being a crazy bitch who slut shamed an innocent woman and helped a rapist thief get away in order to get the throne she'd been obsessing over since she was five years old.
Thank God Leopold was just an old idiot living in a world with an ass-backward social contract and David got his mother's kindness rather than his father's abusive alcoholism like her uncle... or Ruth at least tempered the addictive trait that Emma knew she shouldn't have tempted downing rum with the fool she could hear upturning her things for clues.
She could go in there and give him a piece of her mind, but Hook was the last person she wanted to deal with right now, so she stayed quiet as a church mouse and waited until he was stalking past, apparently with a borrowed cellphone and grumbling about the "talking phone" and other worlds that made no sense.
Probably, Emma concluded, she should inform someone that she hadn't been kidnapped by an evil entity or run out of town, but first she needed a shower and an espresso. Make that a double espresso.
Emma waited until the creaking stairs revealed the pirate's departure, then she slipped out of Neal's room and into hers, scowling at the damage done. A quick spell fixed it, the price of which she would probably regret later, but she didn't need Granny busting in on her with a crossbow.
Scowling, not feeling especially optimistic about this task of hers, Emma turned on the clanking old shower, yanked off her grass-stained clothes and stepped under the spray.
The ice cold spray.
"Sonofabitch!" Emma shrieked. "Goddamned pirate!"
It was bad enough that Hook had busted down her door looking for her and left her room smelling of rum, unwashed leather, and that weird Enchanted Forest cologne he used to cover the stench of his coat. But this was just... ugh!
She really should have known, though. During her weeks living here with Henry, she'd thought it was just the ancient water heater or boiler - since she hadn't had the opportunity to use the Inn's shower the only previous time she'd spent here that first night in town. But it was Hook.
It was only Bitch Emma's first "sleep over" (she'd decided upon calling her homunculus 'Bitch Emma') with Hook in their creepy fuckpad with an evil basement lair that revealed the pirate really really enjoyed the modern convince of long, luxurious, hot showers to the point of leaving no hot water for anyone else.
Something Emma both wished she'd remembered sooner and had never known at all. The whole fake memory shit thanks to Regina was emotionally traumatizing enough!
Sighing, Emma dressed in a clean sweater and jeans and retrieved her favorite jacket. It was miserably cold and damp out, but she was only going to the diner for coffee.
Her heart constricted a bit, recalling how she'd stood Neal up, never expecting it would be the last opportunity to talk to him, to resolve things.
Ruby was at the counter and gave her a relieved look.
"Emma! There you are! You left your phone. Hook took it..."
"Of course he did," she groaned.
Ruby gave her a sympathetic look. "Looks like a black eye kind of morning."
Grimacing, Emma agreed, "Yeah, no amount of cinnamon is going to-"
Suddenly the patrol car sped by, siren blaring.
"What the-?"
Carrying her black coffee with two shots of espresso, Emma followed the werewolf waitress out front, glimpsing the patrol car as it turned sharply onto Marine Drive at the end of Main.
It was a moment before Emma noticed something literally out of place. "Where the hell is my car?"
The Bug had been parked between Granny's and the flower shop.
"Oh," Ruby uttered, "you might have also left your keys with your phone here last night..."
Emma almost threw her coffee down. "I am going to castrate that fucking pirate!"
AN: Short but... sweet? 'Bitch Emma' is an homage to Family Guy's 'Bitch Stewie'. They really do remind me of one another! If only 'Bitch Emma' on the show would melt into a puddle of human sludge!
FORMATTING QUESTION: Anyone know what causes the -276 and 0 to randomly appear at the front of my paragraphs sometimes? I post my stories using Word Pad files.
Next up: Will Emma kill Hook?