New fic: The Greatest Gift, PG, OUAT, Henry, Emma/Regina, Part I
Title: The Greatest Gift
Characters: Henry, Emma/Regina\
Rating: PG
Author: chilly_flame
Summary: Henry makes a wish that changes everything.Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Disney/ABC’s Once Upon a Time.
Wordcount: around 15k
Author’s notes: this is based on a prompt from the marvelous writetherest, and written for her generous donation to Hurricane Sandy relief. If the story seems familiar, it ought to! It’s based on “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which is one of my favorite movies. I’ve also realized that lots of my OUAT stories are about characters who make wishes, so I might as well just embrace that. Special thanks to Xander, Lola and Kristen for keeping me on track with this!
Merry Christmas, writetherest. I hope this is all you wished it would be.
---
Henry couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
The Christmas tree stood at the back of the foyer, just as it had every year he’d lived in the mansion; that is, every year he’d been alive. It seemed as though his mom-Regina-had actually decorated it herself. Usually she hired people to do the job and it looked like it came out of a magazine, but this time, it was just imperfect enough to seem like she’d done it.
Then again, she’d probably used magic. She’s the Evil Queen. Of course she did. And magic is the easy way out. She said she’s not using magic, but Henry doesn’t trust her. Not a hundred percent, anyway.
His real mom would never do that. She works hard, and she does the right thing, every time.
“Do you like it, Henry?” Regina asked.
Her voice was kind of shaky, and she sounded different than she usually did. “It’s okay,” he replied. He was annoyed just looking at the tree.
“Henry, your mom spent a lot of time on this tree--” Emma said, just behind his shoulder. She put a hand on top of his head. “I think it’s awesome.”
“Thank you,” Regina said, and once again, her voice was high and weird. “I-I wanted you both to like it.”
Henry turned around and watched Emma smile. Her eyes were soft, and she looked almost shy. It was confusing to see her this way. Since she’d come back from the Enchanted Forest, she was a lot nicer to his mom--to Regina, rather--and she smiled a lot more at her. They’d been spending all this time together (“Catching up,” Emma called it), and Henry didn’t like it. The Savior shouldn’t be friends with the Evil Queen, even if Regina was trying to be better.
“I love it,” Emma said, and she got that half grin that she gave Henry sometimes, when he said something really nice to her, like he loved her, or that she was the best mom. He didn’t want to see that grin pointed at Regina.
“Come in the kitchen. I’ve made cocoa for you both, and I’ve got eggplant parmesan in the oven. Henry, you still like that, don’t you?”
“I guess,” he said, covering his stomach with one arm when it growled at little. He really loved her eggplant parmesan; it was one of his favorites. He hoped she hadn’t heard his stomach.
“Sounds great,” Emma said, taking off her coat and setting it on the side table. Henry did the same, wishing he could just leave.
He followed Emma into the kitchen, which was just as he’d remembered it, except there were Christmas lights hung around the ceiling, and candles lit, and little decorations all around the room. It looked really pretty and warm and nice, and it made him wish…
Just for a second, he wished he still lived here. His mom wore her regular apron over a nice silky shirt, and her hair was soft and curled, and he felt a pang of longing in his chest. But after a moment, he reminded himself, She’s the Evil Queen. It had been his mantra for so long it was easy to forget the person she’d been before. The mom she’d been.
“It looks amazing in here, Regina,” Emma said. “Smells great, too.”
Regina handed Henry a cup topped with whipped cream and freshly ground cinnamon before giving Emma her cocoa. “That one’s yours,” she told Emma. “No sharing, okay? It’s got a little something special in it--”
Henry reached out and knocked the cocoa from her hand. “Don’t drink it, Emma!” The mug went flying a few feet and fell on the hard floor, spattering cocoa and cream and probably poison all over the place. “You can’t hurt her again!”
His two moms stared at him with mouths open. “Henry!” Emma shouted, much more harshly than he deserved. “What the hell are you doing?”
Henry was indignant. “She was going to poison you! She just told you so herself!”
As soon as he said the words, they sounded stupid to his own ears. Why would his mom poison Emma but tell her in advance?
“It was just a little Irish whiskey,” Regina said, her smile gone now, completely. She knelt on the floor and picked up the pieces of broken porcelain, joined by Emma a second later. Emma grabbed some paper towels and sopped up the cocoa.
“Kid, you’ve got the worst timing,” Emma told him. “Apologize.”
He frowned. “What? Why?”
“I said apologize,” Emma growled, but Regina reached out and put a hand on her wrist.
“It’s all right, Emma,” Regina said. They were looking at each other, and Emma didn’t jerk away or look upset or anything. In fact, neither of them bothered to look at Henry for so long that it made him nervous.
“Sorry,” Henry managed, and that seemed to distract them into action. They finished cleaning up the mess he made (which he was embarrassed about, now,) and his mom poured Emma a fresh cup of cocoa from the saucepan on the stove.
“Still want something extra in it?” Regina asked.
Emma nodded eagerly. “Definitely.”
Regina poured dark liquid from another bottle into the cup. She swirled it around before adding a spoonful of homemade whipped cream and sprinkling cocoa powder on top. She tasted it herself, humming in satisfaction. “See, Henry? No poison. It’s quite delicious. Drink yours, I heard your stomach growling all the way across the room. It won’t be long before dinner is ready.” She handed the cup to Emma, who gazed down on it, running her finger along the rim with a dazed look on her face. She sipped from it with her eyes closed.
He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. Why were they being so nice to each other?
---
The eggplant was as good as it always was. Henry tried, but it was almost impossible not to scarf it down after so many weeks of diner food and pizza and scrambled eggs. Nobody in the apartment could cook like Regina, not even Snow, who was pretty good in the kitchen. At least she didn’t burn the toast like both Emma and his grandpa did.
Emma leaned back in her chair with a lazy grin on her face. She patted her stomach. “Wow. That was unbelievably good.”
Regina lifted her glass of wine in Emma’s direction. “Thank you. I hope you left room for dessert.”
“We can’t stay, Mom. We have to get back to Snow and David’s for dessert there. We’re supposed to meet them.” He couldn’t think of a better lie quickly enough, so he just left it at that. It didn’t matter though; he was sure by now Emma would want to leave.
“Henry, come on. We’re staying,” Emma said firmly. “I always have room for dessert.” She blinked at Regina, and they stared at each other again. This was the third time it happened, and it made him squirm in his seat. His mom--Regina, that is--looked really happy, and Henry stood up from his chair.
“Emma, what’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“Henry,” Regina said, interrupting her. “It’s all right, if you need to go--”
“Regina,” Emma turned to her, “We’re not leaving. I want to stay, and Henry does too, he’s just--”
“I don’t want to stay. I know my mom--” he winced saying the words, “changed, and she’s not totally evil anymore. But she’s-I don’t know. What’s happening is weird. Why are you even here? I get that I’d have dinner here once in a while, because she’s my mom, but you guys aren’t friends. You shouldn’t be friends.”
“We are friends, Henry,” Emma said, her eyebrow arching angrily. “I care about your mom. A lot. I care what happens to her, and how she feels, and I want you two to have a relationship again. You might… have bad memories about some things, but it’s important--”
“You mean about how big of a liar she is? About how she adopted me, and then lied to me my whole life about who I really am?”
“Henry, that’s not true--” Regina said.
“It is true! You’re a queen who cursed an entire land, and you made me think I was crazy. I can’t just forgive you for that.” Henry shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d said all this before, over and over. He’d had months to adjust to the truth, but he wouldn’t let go. More than anything, he didn’t want his mom and Emma to like each other. His mom was going to hurt Emma again, and him, too. Just like she always did.
At least, like she did some of the time. But he wasn’t going to think about the fun things they did together, or the nice times they had, or the holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving they used to spend watching movies and cuddling on the couch, sometimes roasting marshmallows over the fire. He’d watch the blinking lights sparkling on the mantelpiece, wondering if Santa would come down the chimney if the flames were lit, but his mom always made sure they were out in plenty of time so he wouldn’t miss their house.
All of that was over now. He’d figured Santa out long before he realized his mom’s true identity. He wasn’t a kid anymore. And he didn’t want to be her kid.
“I know, Henry, and I’m trying to make up for all that, the best way I know how. I want to be good enough. I want, one day, for you to love me again,” Regina said, and there were tears in her eyes.
“But you tried to kill Emma, and you almost killed me. I wish--” he began, and wondered if he should say the words. But they spilled from his mouth like a waterfall too powerful to stop, “I wish you’d never adopted me. I wish I never lived in Storybrooke, and never knew you. Everything would be better if you weren’t my mom.”
“Henry!” Emma barked. “Stop it!”
“I mean it,” Henry told her. And in the moment, it was true. “I wish I’d never come here. I wish it with my whole heart.”
For a second the world tilted on its axis, and swirled like the colors in a peppermint candy cane. Everything went black, and he closed his eyes and collapsed.
---
When Henry opened his eyes, it was dark. Maybe his mom put him in his old bed or something; he couldn’t remember what happened after he screamed at her. Not that it mattered much. He would end up going home with Emma and his grandparents like he usually did.
The lights flicked on, and he frowned.
“Up and at ‘em, kids,” an unfamiliar woman said. He looked around, and realized he was on the lower mattress of a bunk bed. All around him were other kids, some who looked older than him, and some younger. He didn’t know any of them. “Breakfast in twenty.” The woman, with metallic gray short hair and an oversized button down shirt, scanned the room. “Hey, uh, Henry?” she asked, as though she couldn’t quite remember his name.
“Yeah?”
“Get your stuff, we’ve got a placement for you. You’re going in a few hours.”
“Um,” he said, looked down at the bed where he lay. He didn’t know what stuff was his and what stuff belonged to the other kids. But when he moved his feet, he peeked under the covers and found a big black garbage bag beneath the sheet. He looked inside it and saw a bunch of clothes, shirts and jeans mostly, a pair of ratty sneakers, a few books, a small collection of Fantastic Four comics, and two stuffed animals. Why it was in the bed with him was beyond him.
“It’s so the other kids won’t take your stuff, dummy,” a girl said, suddenly seated next to him on the thin, uncomfortable mattress. “You can’t really lock up your things in a group home. And a couple of months ago somebody took the sneakers you got over the summer, so you’re wearing some that don’t really fit anymore.” The girl, blonde and about his age, shrugged. “Sucks, doesn’t it.”
“What are you talking about? I don’t live in a group home. I live in a house, or sometimes an apartment with my mom,” he said, before realizing he didn’t know which mom he meant.
She laughed, and he noticed her teeth were perfectly straight and white. “No, you don’t. You live here. You have for three months, but they found you a new foster family. You won’t be with them long, though. You never are. You’re kind of a jerk to your families, and when you’re difficult, it’s a lot simpler for them to just hand you back to the system and find another kid. The people that want to collect money for taking care of you want somebody who doesn’t cause trouble. And you, Henry Swan, always cause trouble.” She nodded sagely, and Henry started feeling sick inside.
“What are you talking about?” Henry asked, gripping his stomach as it rolled.
She continued, “I don’t usually tell my subjects their futures, because the bigwigs frown on that, but you won’t remember soon anyhow. I think I’m safe in telling you that you won’t be adopted. You’ll age out, like your mom did, and for the first few years after that, you’ll get by doing odd jobs, one fixing cars, another as a cashier at a gas station. But when you steal from the till one too many times, you’ll get a free ride at county for a few months. After that, things get a little hazy, but it didn’t look too good. Sorry I can’t tell you more--I didn’t have a lot of prep time.”
“Um, I think you’re got me confused with someone else,” Henry said, completely stunned.
“Nope. You’re my subject for sure. I’m here to introduce you to your new life. Your wish changed everything. How’s it working out so far?” the girl asked, eyebrows raised. Her eyes were a really pretty dark blue, and her voice was light and airy. Something about her reminded him of both his moms, but he couldn’t put his finger on why.
“Your subject,” Henry said. “Subject of what?”
She was growing flustered. “Regina didn’t adopt you, dopey. When you make a wish like that and you really mean it, we don’t just throw you into deep end of a new life, of course. That’s not very responsible. Somebody’s gotta explain the deal, and that’s my job. I might look pretty young, but I had a pretty interesting life before I took on this gig. Believe me, I’m a better instructor than almost anyone you could get.”
None of this made sense. He made a wish and now he… What? “Listen, where’s my mom?”
The girl rolled her eyes. “Henry, you’re awfully thick. Your mom’s in Storybrooke, where she’s been for the past 29 years. You never went to get Emma on her birthday, because you never went to Storybrooke. The curse didn’t break, and since the prophesy wasn’t fulfilled, it never will be.”
Henry gaped at this girl who knew everything about the curse and Storybrooke and his mom. “How do you know about the curse?”
“I was sent here. So get your stuff together, dopey, and let’s get breakfast. I assume you’ll want to, you know, do some stuff after you eat, right?”
Henry nodded. “If the curse hasn’t broken, then I have to find Emma and bring her to Storybrooke. She has to go there to find her family. And she has to meet me, too. She’ll want to be with me, just like she did when I first found her.” Henry grinned. Maybe he was dreaming, but if he really hadn’t been raised by his mom, then his life couldn’t be all bad, could it? “Are you my guardian angel?”
“We don’t really go by that, these days. You can just call me Bailey.”
If this girl had special powers, she might be a big help to him. “Can you get me some money, Bailey? I gotta buy a bus ticket to Boston. Where are we, anyway?”
“Arizona.”
Henry’s heart sank. “Geez. That’s… kind of far. It’s going to take forever to get to Massachusetts.”
“Yep. But I can hook us up. Let’s eat, and after that, I’ll make it happen.”
Henry looked down at his garbage bag of stuff. “Think you can get me a back pack instead of this?”
“Not right now. Maybe you can lift one on the way to the bus stop.”
“You mean steal?” Henry wrinkled his nose. “I don’t steal. That’s not right.”
“You don’t? This new version of you does. He didn’t have anybody consistent enough in his life to teach him the right thing to do. He takes what he wants even if it hurts other people.”
He blinked at Bailey, who looked totally serious. “But I’m-I’m not like that. I’m a good person.”
Bailey shrugged. “Just telling you like it is.”
Henry ignored her and got off the bed. He shoved his bag back under the covers and put on the shoes that pinched his toes. With every step, his feet ached, but he didn’t have any choice. He also noticed that his jeans had holes in the knees, and the shirt he was wearing smelled kind of bad.
“Laundry day is tomorrow,” Bailey said. “Looks like you’ll miss the boat.”
---
Two days later, they were still on the train bound for Boston. Bailey did some weird guardian angel thing that let them get on without an adult; she called it “putting the whammy” on the conductor. He wished she’d been able to “put the whammy” on somebody at an airport instead, because this trip was taking forever. It had been so much easier getting from Maine to Boston, but he’d do whatever it took to find Emma. He missed her, and Snow, and Gramps, and everyone in Storybrooke.
He grimaced when he thought of Regina. He wondered what she was doing, or if she even knew that she should be missing him.
His stomach hurt again, and he wriggled in his seat.
“You hungry, Dopey?” Bailey said.
“Why do you keep calling me that? I’m not one of the Seven Dwarves. I’m just Henry.”
Bailey grinned. “I just like the sound of it. Henry makes you sound like an old guy.”
“Whatever,” Henry replied.
He’d learned a lot about his new self since they’d been on the train. Bailey filled him in. Emma had given him up for adoption, just like she had before, but Mr. Gold never came to get him from the agency, so he’d spent the first couple of years of his life at an orphanage. She said he never slept well, even when he was an infant, because he’d never felt what it was like to sleep safe and sound. Not the way he had when he slept at Regina’s house, where it was warm, and comfortable. That morning when he’d shaken himself awake in his uncomfortable train seat, he remembered something really weird. For some reason he had a vision of the mobile of giraffes that hung over his crib when he was really small, and the song it played when it turned above him. He kept that mobile in his room even after he slept in a big bed, because he loved it so much. Then a couple of years ago, he recalled tearing it out of the ceiling, throwing it across the room, and stomping on it.
It was after Mary Margaret gave him the book, and he’d realized who he really was. Who Regina really was.
But the next day, he couldn’t help but regret breaking the mobile. He even regretted the way his mom looked when she’d seen the wreckage, like it was the worst thing he could have ever done. But she hadn’t yelled at him; she’d just taken the broken pieces from his room and left.
Later she’d been angry and made him clean his room till it was spotless, but right then? She’d looked broken too.
“In this life, you never had a mobile,” Bailey said from her seat next to him. It unnerved him that she could tell what he was thinking. “Sorry, it’s part of the gig. And you never even knew that you could have something like it.”
Bailey had also told him that he’d done his share of beating on the other kids when he could get away with it. Henry had argued with her again about being a good person, but Bailey had been adamant that when you grow up without parents, sometimes you don’t know any better. You don’t make the right decisions, because, in her words, “Your brain’s not finished cooking, and without somebody to steer you, you screw up.” He’d rolled his eyes at that, but he thought about it later, too. A couple of days before he’d seen a kid at the group home shy away from him at breakfast, and he’d had a mark on his face like somebody had taken a swing at him. Bailey had said he’d done it, and even though Henry hadn’t believed her at first, he was starting to.
I’m a good person, Henry reminded himself. I’m good because Emma is my mom, and she’s the savior.
He ignored the voice in his head that told him that he was good because Regina had taught him to be good. She couldn’t have been a part of that, because she was evil, and she always had been.
Hadn’t she?
---
Over the rest of the train trip, he learned his grades had never been very good, because he’d changed schools all the time. He’d been held back once already and was on his way to another failed year, and his departure for Boston would surely cement that.
“It won’t matter,” Henry told her. “In Storybrooke they’ll know I’m Emma’s son, and they’ll put me in the right grade.”
Bailey pursed her lips. “Who are you gonna live with, Dope?”
“I’ll live with Emma. As soon as she realizes who I am, she’ll want to go to Maine, and we’ll get to be with Snow and Charming again.”
She just snorted. “Right.”
They got to Boston at 7, which meant Bailey had to shell out more of her magically appearing cash for them to get a cab to Emma’s. It was too far to walk, so he threw his garbage bag of stuff (he hadn’t had the guts to steal a back pack from the train station) on the floor of the smelly car. Bailey crawled in beside him and motioned for him to tell the cabbie where to go. He knew Emma’s address as though it had been burned into his soul, thankfully.
They arrived after about ten minutes, and Henry rode the elevator with Bailey beside him, so ready to see Emma it was killing him. Her door was just as he’d remembered it, and when it opened, she looked not quite same. Her hair was shorter and darker, but her eyes were that same ocean green, and her chin was just like Snow White’s. Just like his own.
“Hi, I’m Henry. I’m your son.”
---
He told Emma mostly the truth, so Emma’s superpower lie detector didn’t kick in, and she didn’t kick him out. But he left out the part where he hadn’t been raised by the Evil Queen, or anything that Bailey had insisted was real now. Last year he’d convinced Emma to drive him to Storybrooke, and tonight he’d convinced her in the exact same way.
Even with Bailey at his side (“as moral support,” he’d claimed,) it worked. Emma put the two of them in her little yellow bug and they’d set off for Maine.
Emma asked the same questions as she once had, but she also seemed kind of different. She had what he thought might be a great big bruise on her side. He saw a bit of when she was pulling on a sweater over her shirt. When he asked her what happened, she just brushed it off. “Rough day at the office,” was all she said, but she’d winced when leaning over to tie up her boots.
“Bounty hunting is a hard job,” he said with a nod of a head.
“How’d you-huh,” she’d replied. “I guess if you could find where I lived, you could find out more. Maybe the talent for finding people is genetic.” She’d frowned then, probably weirded out by considering his gene pool was partly hers. But he didn’t think it was weird at all.
Once they crossed the border into Storybrooke, he could hardly wait to get into town. His heart pounded, and already he felt more at home. “Almost there,” he said to Bailey in the back seat.
“You know the way to your house, kid?” Emma asked.
“Um,” Henry said, wondering exactly how he was going to work this out. He couldn’t go straight to the Mayor’s house-Regina wouldn’t recognize him. Not that Emma knew that. “Let’s go to Granny’s boarding house. You can take me to see my mom tomorrow morning. She doesn’t expect me back until then anyway.”
“Who’s gonna pay for that?” Emma asked. “I didn’t intend to stay the night--”
“I’ve got money,” Bailey chimed in. “Besides, Granny’s is pretty inexpensive. It’s not like they get a lot of business.”
“Why not?” Emma asked. “Something wrong with the place?”
“No,” Henry said. “The town’s pretty small, not much to do.” And it’s mostly invisible to the rest of the world unless you know the way in, he thought. “There will be rooms available.”
“I think I should take you straight home, kid,” Emma said. “Even if your mom expects you tomorrow--”
“You’re my mom, Emma,” Henry reminded her.
She sighed. “Listen, kid. Henry. When I gave you up, I signed my rights away, and since then I haven’t looked back. I knew you’d have a better life if I let you go, and you did. A nice, successful woman--even if you say she’s an evil queen--raised you, and from what I can tell you turned out okay.” She smiled a little. “That’s more than I can say for me.”
“It’s not your fault, though. It’s my mom’s fault. She cast the curse that made your parents send you to this world.”
“Right, I forgot. So where are we going? Where’s the mayor’s house?”
“I really think Granny’s is a better idea--”
“Why is that?” Emma asked. “Because there’s something starting to ping off to me, Henry.” She pulled the car to the side of the road, just outside the center of town. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. I just don’t want to wake her up.”
“Don’t you have a key?”
He glanced back at Bailey, who shook her head. She was no help when she didn’t want to be.
“No.” At least he wasn’t lying.
“What kind of mother lets her kid run off to Boston without a key to his own house?” Emma asked.
A mother who isn’t a mother, Henry thought. This was going to be way more complicated than he’d anticipated. “Listen, Granny’s is just on the next block. We can stop in and get a room and tomorrow first thing in the morning you can take me home. I just want you to stay for a little bit, Emma, and if you leave now, it might not end up well for you.” Especially since last time she tried to leave after first coming to Storybrooke, she’d gotten in a wreck and spent the night in jail.
“Whatever, kid. You’re trying to fleece me, but I know all the angles. I’m gonna get the truth out of you no matter what,” she said firmly.
“I’m not lying, I promise. We’ll go in the morning.”
Emma pulled away from the curb and drove down the road. Henry turned around and smiled at Bailey, who shrugged her shoulders.
---
Right away, Henry could tell things were… not the way they used to be in Storybrooke.
At the bed and breakfast, Granny wasn’t even there. It was some guy Henry didn’t recognize, and he didn’t even really look at them when giving them a room. He barely glanced at Emma’s ID, and when Bailey handed him a wad of cash he hadn’t flinched. He almost seemed like a zombie.
As they’d departed for their room, Henry had asked the man in a low voice, “Where’s Granny? Or Ruby?”
The man lifted an eyebrow. “Granny died years ago. And Ruby? She’s been--” He blinked at Henry. “You’re too young to know anything about Ruby, boy. Who are you?”
Henry felt the first frisson of panic then. “Nobody,” he said, and scurried off after Emma and Bailey, who were already halfway up the steps.
What the heck? Granny dead? Ruby… gone? This was unexpected.
They kept the conversation to a minimum, and Emma fell into her bed with a thud. “Wake me early, kid,” she said. “I’m going to head home after I drop you off.”
Henry said okay to that, knowing that there was no way he was letting Emma out of his sight from here on out. Especially since everything might be off kilter, starting with Ruby and Granny. He needed to find out more, as soon as possible. But tonight, he’d sleep. He had some worn out pajama pants in his garbage bag that were too short for him, and he tried to keep the sound of his rustling quiet. Emma had never asked what was in his bag, but she’d looked at it strangely more than once.
After Henry started getting ready for bed, Bailey pulled a new pair of PJs right out of the bag too, grinning at him cheerfully.
“If you can get magic up your own pajamas, how come you can’t get me a new pair of shoes?” he whispered.
“Doesn’t work that way, Dopey, you should know that by now.”
“Whatever,” he said. He was saying that a lot lately.
He slid beside Bailey in the big bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time. When he finally fell asleep, he had a strange dream of a big man he didn’t recognize. The man sat in one of those leather reclining chairs in front of a small tv. Not a flat one like his mom had, but an old-fashioned one that had a bad picture. He was drinking a beer and eating something that smelled gross.
“Kid, get me another beer,” the man said.
Dream Henry went to the refrigerator and opened it up. There was no beer on any of the shelves; there was, in fact, nothing at all in the fridge except a lemon that looked petrified and a carton of milk that had expired the week before.
He went back to the reclining chair. “There’s no beer,” Henry said.
“Huh?” the man grunted.
“There’s no more beer-“
A hand shot out and smacked him across the face. Henry fell to the floor. “You were supposed to bring me a six pack when you came home today, little bastard,” the man said. He picked up Henry by the collar, choking him. His cheek stung, and he’d peed a little in his pants when he’d gotten hit. “You’re going in the hole, kid. I’ll let you out tomorrow once you learned your lesson.” Then Henry was tossed into a closet, and the door slammed behind him. He heard a key turn in the lock, and another minute later, he heard the door that led outside crash shut as well. The man must have gone out for more beer.
At least Henry felt safer in here than he had been out there.
He jerked awake and glanced at the clock. It wasn’t even 1 in the morning yet, and already he felt afraid to go back to sleep.
“Bad dream?” Bailey asked. She was awake next to him; he could see her eyes were open and she leaned her head on one hand.
“Yeah. It was strange. It was-well, you probably know, don’t you.”
Bailey just nodded in the darkness. “It wasn’t a dream, though, Henry. It was a memory.”
Henry blinked at her. She appeared totally serious. “That never happened to me.”
“Yes, it did. Three years ago. You lived at that apartment for four months. You went to the hospital twice, and the second time, child protective services got a clue and pulled you out. But your shoulder dislocates pretty easily now, so you have to be careful.”
“What do you mean?” Henry whispered. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re going to remember your real life a little at a time. And eventually, your memories of your life in Storybrooke are going to fade away. It will take a while, though, while you transition. It’s only fair that you should forget your old life, right? You won’t need those memories anymore.”
The thought terrified him. “I can’t forget who I really am!” Henry hissed. “That’s not fair. I’m Emma’s son, the grandson of Snow White and Prince Charming--”
“And since you weren’t raised by Regina, you won’t know any of that stuff, Henry. Don’t worry, it will be a few more weeks before you really forget. But when you’re done, I’ll be on my way, and you can get going with your new life. You won’t even remember what I told you will happen in your future. You’ll just get to… live it.”
“This wasn’t what I asked for,” Henry said, glancing over at Emma. She was snoring lightly. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”
“It’s not a deal, Henry. This was your wish. Your choice.”
Henry felt the tears pricking his eyes. He didn’t want more of those memories if they were anything like he’d just experienced. “This isn’t fair,” he said again, his stomach tying up in a knot.
“Life ain’t fair, Dopey,” Bailey said, falling back against her pillow.
Henry bit his lip and tried not to let the tears fall. “Don’t call me that.”
---
Part II.