So wake me up when it's all over,
When I'm wiser and I'm older,
All this time I was finding myself,
And I didn't know I was lost.
-Avicci: Wake Me Up
If there was one thing that could be said about Emma, it was that she was a sensible woman. Years of working with horses had taught her to believe what she could she, what she could feel. She knew when a horse was scared by watching his nostrils flair or by feeling him tense underneath the saddle. She knew when a rescued who had come to her had been abused by the way the flinched at the slightest move. She could feel love when Bug pushed her muzzle gently into her chest. She could see when a horse was frustrated, lazy, or content. She could see things in their expression that others could. She knew things from looking at them, even when Mary Margret called her crazy or told her they were "just a horse". She knew all these things because she had learned them over the years. She had learned them through physical proof. Years of sweat, blood, and tears.
If there's one thing that couldn't be said about Emma, it was that she believed in the fantastical. To her, magic existed in watching Henry with his pony learning to ride. It was in playing cards on Friday night with James, or helping David and Mary Margret with their new house. It was the small moments in her life that she knew others would take for granted. It was not in fairy tales. It wasn't spells or dragons. It was a wand or glass slipper. And it most certainly was in True Love's kiss or sleeping curses.
Emma knew all of this. That, however, didn't stop her mind from wandering. It also didn't stop her from screaming out in fright as John Doe took a gasping breath in and reached his hands up the second her lips touched his cheek.
"Oh God!" Emma cried leaping backwards, taking Henry with her on the way.
John Doe was now awake. Awake and currently trying to pull all his tubes and wires off.
"Momma you did it!" Henry cheered, clapping his hands from where he dangled in her arms.
"I- " Emma began before the noises started. All the machines surrounding John Doe were protesting the sudden changes. Everything was beeping. The lines on his heart monitor were jumping, and his IV stand was shrieking. Fortunately, Emma and Henry were the only one to notice.
Several nurses were now running into the room, trying to restrain John Doe. Dr. Whale – did that man ever go home? – was hot on their heels.
"Is he okay?" Henry asked with a clearer head than Emma.
Dr. Whale seemed to notice them for the first time since entering the room. "Ms. Swan, if I could ask you to step out." He dismissed her before injecting something into John Doe's arm.
She did not need to be told twice. She grabbed her bag and drug Henry out of the room faster than she would have thought possible. Her mind was spinning.
He's awake. You kissed him. And he's awake. The thoughts were running in a loop now. That's ridicules. He did not wake up because you kissed him.
"Momma you kissed him and he woke up!" Henry said excitedly, jumping up and down in front of her. Well fuck a duck, she thought, looking down at him and remembering that she wasn't alone. And that she wasn't the only one to witness the fact that a man mysteriously woke from a coma after a kiss from her. "That means you're his True Love!" He was clapping again. She really couldn't catch a break.
"Henry, I- he didn't – ugh. There's a lot of reasons that he could have woken up." Emma looked sadly down at her son. This plan had not worked out as she thought. Sure, just show him that magic's not real. Don't worry the universe won't just majorly screw you over just for the fucking fun of it like it always does.
"Yeah, like cuz you're his True Love." He was giggling now. Little bastard. Just like his Uncle James.
"No, Henry. I'm not his True Love." She tried to say it as gently as possible as she bent down to his level. "But now that he's waking up, we can find his family. We can ask him." She tried to put a smile on her face, despite the sinking feeling that her heart held once the words tumbled from her lips.
"But-" Henry began, his lower lips slowly sliding out further and further. Oh no, she thought, he's pulling out the pout. His pout almost never failed to get him his way. But there was no way he could get what he wanted this time. Neither of them could.
Luckily, she was saved by the bell, as Dr. Whale came out of the room. "Ah, Ms. Swan."
"Doctor," she responded, waiting. What she was waiting for she couldn't really tell. Was it for his name? The marching order to go to the sheriff's station and find his family? Was it to tell her that a sleeping curse had just broke? That she was on a reality game show or just been punked?
"So it looks like today's the day." He began with a smile. "Looks like our John Doe is going to be fine after all."
"He's awake? Just like that?" She could see he was awake, but unlike the horses she knew so well, she didn't have years of experience with this. To believe in something like this, she would need a bit more. I guess I'll have to figure out what it is I need a bit more of.
"Seems so, as of right now we really have no idea what caused him to wake up." He almost seemed as confused as her, but not nearly as concerned.
"I do! I do! I do!" Henry interrupted, waving his hand in the air while jumping up and down.
"Oh really?" Dr. Whale asked amused.
"Yeah it was-" Henry didn't get to finish that sentence before Emma slapped a hand over his mouth with a hurried "don't bother the doctor".
"So what now, do we call his family or the sheriff's station first?" Emma asked, feeling as if she was standing on the edge of a large abyss.
"Well that's kind of the thing," he seemed almost sheepish now, facing Henry and Emma. As if he had left something very important at home and just now realized he needed it. "We still don't really have any family to call. He doesn't seem to remember who he is."
Way to bury the lead on that one.
"He has amnesia?" Emma asked, clearly her life was becoming a telenovela.
"It's not actually surprising, he cracked his head of his door large hard enough to fracture his skull." He shrugged at this. Apparently when someone you're suddenly responsible for hits his head hard enough to forget who he is it's not a big deal. She would have to remember to turn that into a bumper sticker.
"He's been cursed again!" Henry said, after finally wiggling his head free of his mother's hold.
"What?" Dr. Whale didn't look as amused as he had before.
"Nothing." Emma said quickly, grabbing Henry again. "So what do we do now?"
"Now we monitor him. See if his memory starts coming back. You can go in and meet him if you like."
"Okay!" Henry yelled before taking off to John Doe's room.
"Henry!" Emma ran after him, tossing Dr. Whale an apologetic look as she did. No reason to piss of Dr. Frankenstein.
Henry made it into the room before she could catch him, vaulting straight onto John Doe's bed and landing almost in his lap.
"You're finally awake!" Henry cheered once again.
Emma cringed watching John Doe, the man was clearly confused. His brow furrowed at Henry before turning his gaze to her.
Emma gasped. In all the confusion and panic she had yet to notice the eyes of the man she had been watching over. Now though, the most beautiful shade of deep blue was staring at her, leaving her breathless and paralyzed.
Emma believed what she saw, but though she could see the floor beneath her feet, she felt nothing but his eyes looking deep into hers and couldn't have told a soul what the truth of anything was in that moment.
He broke eye contact first, looking back to Henry, who was now bouncing up in down in front of John Doe talked excitedly about curses. Henry had climbed further into the man's lap, and was now one bounce away from tossing himself clean off the bed.
What happened next made Emma's knees weak. Sensing Henry's impending fall, the man reached up both hands and placed them on the small boy's waist to keep him steady. He winced at a particularly rapid bounce from Henry, and Emma realized that it probably hurt like hell to be holding Henry steady with his hand in a cast. The thought finally broke Emma from her trance.
"I'm so sorry." She said rushing forward quickly, to pull Henry off of the poor man.
Twenty seconds in as his guardian and already I've left a four year old attack him.
"Henry baby, you can't jump on him like that." Emma admonished, mostly for something to do rather than be pulled back into the questioning stare of her John Doe.
"It's quite alright." In that moment Emma thought she would remember those words for the rest of her life. The first words ever spoken between her and a man that had already been through so much together. And all of it without a single bit of his knowledge. It was the accent that pulled her eyes back to his, she had not been expecting an British accent from the leather jacket and biker boots.
As it turns out, looking back at him had been a mistake. Once again, Emma found herself locked in his gaze, and it seemed neither of them were inclined to break it. In other circumstances she might have been thinking about the blueness of his eyes, as if she was looking into an ocean or something like that, but now, as his gaze searched hers, she felt only as if she was looking into the eyes of an old and trusted friend. Someone she had known for a very long time, and someone who knew her better than herself. Cold licks of fear ran down her spine.
Henry was not as amused by this charade as he seemed to be everything else.
"Momma we woke him up." Henry reminded her, pulling on her hand with his. "We gotta break his new curse."
"My what?" John Doe asked just as Emma started to quite Henry again.
"You're curse! You were sleeping like the princess and now you can't remember so we gotta get your memories back so you can live happy ever after!" Henry gave John Doe a tooth grin, and Emma worried that he might make a jump for his bed again.
"Did you just call me a princess?" John Doe asked with an amused smirk. That's what he focused on? Emma could help but chuckle to herself, and pray that he didn't toss that smirk her way. Lord knows it could be trouble.
"Henry, why don't you go and wait with Dr. Whale while we talk okay?" Emma really didn't want Henry to slip and say more about sleeping curses… or how he thinks she broke it. Yeah so you were in a coma and I kind of kissed you. No big deal, really!
"Okay Momma, you can talk." Did he just put air quotes around that? She couldn't believe Henry. Her son the wingman trying to set her up with the coma man. Well kissing the guy probably didn't help to discourage him.
"Go." She said sternly, pushing his small shoulders to the door. She waited until the door swung shut to turn back to John Doe. When she did, she found him to be wearing a pained expression.
"Are you alright? Did he hurt you when he jumped on you?" Emma stepped closer to his bed, hands waving in the air around him looking for something to do to ease his pain.
"I'm sorry," He said, looking at her again with pain.
"For what?" What could this man possibly be apologizing to her for?
"I don't remember you. Either of you, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry if that's going to hurt him, or you." He looked at her then with something, something she hadn't seen anyone look at her with in a long time. It made her want to run. It made her want to stay.
"Oh, no, you don't- I mean we don't- We've never met." She said quickly, the air around them becoming thick and awkward.
"What?" He asked, the pain had left his face to be replaced by confusion once again.
"We don't know each other. Well, I know you I guess. I mean, not really. I'm not making any sense am I?" She asked, only if to stop her rambling. She didn't quite understand what was happening. She was never one to get flustered easy. Something about this man just seemed to bring it out of her.
"I'm afraid not lass." The confusion was still there, but a new kind of pain seemed to be etching its way across his face. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"
Well that works. Emma thought.