Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or its characters; I only borrow.
Emma woke early. She hadn't been able to sleep much, anyway. From what she could tell, Hook hadn't been able to either; she heard him shifting around on the couch a good portion of the night. (Emma and Henry had taken the bed, Henry sleeping on the very edge as far from the window as possible.)
Tiptoeing in the living area so that she wouldn't wake Hook, she settled in at the table and starting marking addresses on the city maps. She wasn't looking forward to the likely day when she'd have to expand the search and do this for other major cities.
Apparently she hadn't been quiet enough, as Hook sat next to her at the table not long after she started. He pulled out a map she had already marked and looked over it.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," she apologized.
"Not to worry, I wasn't sleeping well anyway."
Emma glanced in at the bed, and Henry just barely avoiding falling off the edge. She sighed internally and decided to bite the bullet. "You know why he does that, don't you? Why he doesn't want to be near a window?"
"Pan's shadow, I would assume," Hook said. "He would take children from their windows to Neverland."
Emma put her head in her hands and sighed, wondering how she could've missed it.
Hook could see her distress, but didn't try to fix it. Good, that'd probably just piss me off right now.
"Why don't you ready yourself for the day and then wake Henry? We should be able to go to Tamara's in a few hours without raising too much suspicion, yes?"
"Maybe around ten or so. Most of her neighbors will probably have gone to work already, but not be home on a lunch break."
Emma decided to make breakfast before she did anything else. Her sweatpants were too comfortable to give up just yet.
"Would you wake up Henry for me?" She looked over at Hook, who was studying the maps again. "The pancakes are almost done."
"What exactly is a pancake?" He asked as he moved to look over her shoulder.
"Aside from delicious?"
"Yes."
"… No, that's pretty much it, just delicious." She grinned at him, flipping another pancake as she did.
"As you and Henry both enjoy those wretched sour straws, I'm not sure I can take your word for it," he teased her before going to wake Henry.
She cleared the maps from the table and set out plates and silverware, then added butter and syrup. As Henry and Hook entered the kitchen she brought over the food. In addition to the pancakes she had fried up bacon, scrambled a few eggs, and even cut up some strawberries. Look at me, being all Suzie Homemaker.
As they sat down to eat, Emma appreciated the moment. As much as she loved eating at a diner, where she didn't have to cook (or clean up), she liked the small bit of normalcy that eating in a kitchen brought amidst the quest for magic. Even with as not domestic as I am, me cooking breakfast for my son and my… friend… is much easier to wrap my head around than voluntarily seeking out something that shouldn't exist.
"So… delicious? Or was I wrong?" Emma asked Hook after he tried the pancakes.
"I'll admit that they aren't as terrible as I feared," he responded with a smile, which widened when she threw a napkin at him.
"Try them with syrup," Henry told the pirate.
Hook did try the syrup, but preferred the pancakes without the "overly sweet confection." Emma couldn't really blame him; the 'maple syrup' was the fake kind that was basically thick liquid sugar.
Henry, on the other hand, poured enough syrup on his plate to prompt Emma to ask him "geez, would you like some pancakes with your syrup?"
"The pancakes are just there to soak up the syrup," he told her. Since she felt that cupcakes were just a delivery mechanism for frosting, she didn't argue.
"I'm not carrying you around town when you collapse from your sugar crash," she warned him.
"Are we going to Tamara's today?" Henry asked. Emma noted the slight note of worry in his tone. She could hardly forget that Greg and Tamara had been the ones to kidnap Henry and deliver him to Pan.
"Yeah, we'll go later this morning. You up for playing lookout again?" She hoped that giving him something to do, especially since it was something helpful, would stave off the disappointment for a while.
"Yep!"
Emma glanced at Hook, who had been silent since his dismissal of syrup, and saw a faint smile on his lips as he watched her and her son. It brought about an unfamiliar, though lately somewhat frequent, warm feeling.
"Alright, go get ready while I clean up," she ordered in a mock serious tone. Hook helped her bring the dishes to the sink, but she sent him away while she did the actual washing. Just a few more minutes of almost normal.
-.*.-.*.-.*.-
Tamara's place was a bust.
They took the subway, since traffic was a mess in the city. As Emma had predicted, Hook barely drew a second glance in his pirate attire.
When they got to the apartment building Emma had Hook and Henry stay outside while she located the actual apartment, which was probably a good idea since the layout was wonky and it took her five minutes to realize that 307 wasn't on the third floor but on the first floor of a new section of the building. That's just ridiculous.
"Alright, let's go," she told her accomplices once she had found the inappropriately located door. She led them through the maze that was the building. Emma had to wonder if Tamara had chosen the building solely for its ability to confuse people who might come asking questions. It certainly would have been effective.
Since there wasn't an apartment directly across from Tamara's door, she stationed Henry at the door and Hook down the hall a ways while she picked the lock (creatively knocked) and entered. After making sure that there weren't any nasty surprises waiting for trespassers, she called Henry and Hook in to help her search for something useful. Henry seemed a bit put out that he hadn't gotten to lie to protect the mission again.
After nearly three hours of searching, she was forced to conclude that there wasn't anything that would help them. In fact, she was pretty sure that this was just a cover place; somewhere that Tamara could show Neal and say "see, I have a home." There were clothes in the closet, a few pieces of jewelry in a box, toiletries in the bathroom, and even pictures on the wall. But there wasn't a single piece of identifying information, absolutely nothing personal. If you removed just the clothes, toiletries, and jewelry, it could easily be a fully-furnished apartment for rent. There wasn't even a grocery list or a notepad with reminders. Emma had already looked up Tamara, and this was the only listing for her name. Meaning that it was likely a fake name. Meaning that they had no way to find out if she did indeed have another place somewhere.
"It would appear we need to move on to the psychics," Hook noted, putting his hand on Emma's arm in comfort.
"Yeah, on to weeding through fraudulent psychics."
Henry was similarly disappointed. He'd already been informed that 'weeding through fraudulent psychics' would probably involve a lot of him sitting around with nothing to do. At least we got some books for him.
Before leaving the apartment building Emma pulled her list and the detailed map of this section of the city out of her purse. Locating the blue mark that indicated Tamara's place, she found the nearest red dot which indicated a psychic affiliated with an occult or alternative religion shop. (Green was for psychics that weren't associated with anyone else, yellow for shops with no listed psychics or fortune-tellers, and places of alternative medicine were indicated with pink.)
"The nearest one is three blocks west and two blocks north of here," she told them.
"Lead the way, my lady," Hook said, opening the apartment door for her.
-.*.-.*.-.*.-
Emma was pretty sure that this psychic was a fake before they even talked to her. She had a room in the back of a bookstore, and Hook started coughing at the incense she burned before they even entered. Emma had Henry sit in a chair just outside, instructing him to scream bloody murder if necessary. Though they hadn't had even a hint of Pan so far, she was extremely uncomfortable leaving him alone.
"Come in, come in," the psychic (Miss Belinda, according to the plate on the door) encouraged. "You must be Emma and Killian," she said with an air that indicated they were supposed to be impressed that she knew their names. Yes, very impressive, considering I called and made an appointment.
She gestured to chairs across the table from her and, after looking at each other with nearly identical skeptical looks, they sat.
"Now, what do you need from Miss Belinda today?" Referring to yourself in the third person is a sign of insanity, you know.
"Shouldn't you know that already?" Hook asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Ah, skeptics, I see." Yes, you're very observant. "A demonstration, then!"
"And how are you going to make us believe that you're for real?" Emma asked.
"Well, let's see…" Miss Belinda waved her hands pretentiously over the cliché of a crystal ball. "Ah, yes. You come to me out of worry." No shit, Sherlock. "You worry for your family, that they are unwell." She addressed only Hook next. "Despite your differences with your in-laws, you worry for your wife's family as well. You needn't, all will right itself in the end." Hook and Emma looked at each other with barely concealed looks of amusement and disbelief. If you're going to be a fraud, at least be thorough. Neither of us is even wearing a wedding ring! Well, okay, Hook has many rings; but my hands are ring-free.
Miss Belinda was perceptive enough to at least pick up on that shared look, and she continued with a change in tactic. "You come to me also about a child, one who is in danger. You worry that your relationship won't survive this difficult time. You shouldn't fear, your daughter will be fine, and your love will get you through." I'll give you assuming that Hook and I have a child, given that we both came in with Henry. But he is very clearly not a daughter. You are beyond an idiot.
Emma was barely holding back a smile now. "Do you have any words of wisdom for us before we go, Miss Belinda?"
"Only that you should trust in fate, and everything will sort itself out."
"We thank you, Miss Belinda," Hook said as he rose from his chair. He, too, was having trouble with his composure.
Emma placed seventy-five dollars, the fraud's fee, and addressed the woman. "You were entirely wrong, of course, and your observation skills could use some definite improvement. But thank you for the illuminating experience."
"How'd it go?" Henry asked them as they left the dimly lit and supposed-to-be-mysterious room.
"One fraud down, lots to go," Emma told him.
She stopped at the counter long enough to tell the clerk that they should consider getting someone a little less dimwitted to act as a psychic. After she asked if he knew of any healers, shamans, or other people of magic, of course.
A/N: My first (and probably totally wrong) prediction for the next half of the season: The Wicked Witch is the former black fairy. No particular reason why I think this, but it'd be a nice twist. And, of course, it'd be nice if any of my fleeting thoughts were right. Also, given that I'm very much a Captain Swan gal, I think that the true love's kiss couldn't possibly have worked (no matter Emma's feelings) because Emma doesn't have her memories of him, just as it didn't work for Belle/Gold and Snow/Charming when those women didn't have their memories even though it had worked before.
Reviews are Jolly Ranchers, and constructive criticism is the cherry flavor! And now I really want Jolly Ranchers… damn.