Chapter Text
So, recapping. Emma had been going insane over the present, constantly bragging about it to Regina and how much she’d love it. Because, maybe for the first time, she was actually proud of giving her a present that is not being used as a sex toy for the entire night! And yes, that may be highly enjoyable for both of them, but this was something more personal, more of what Emma wanted. And finally, not doing something wrong felt nice as well.
But instead, she made the biggest fuck-up in the history of Christmas.
So she called Henry, who reacted quite differently than Emma expected. He looked more enthusiastic than worried, but she couldn’t blame him. If she were sixteen, too, she probably would’ve reacted the same way he’s responding.
“What. The. Hell, ma?!” Henry couldn’t hold his excitement and burst into laughter. “Is this an actual reindeer?!”
“Yeah, kid,” Emma felt like she was going to vomit. What was she supposed to do with a fucking reindeer?! It was a beast almost as tall as her but twice her weight; she couldn’t just hide it inside a closet and hope Regina wouldn’t notice! “What do we do…?”
Henry seemed like he loved it. But what kid wouldn’t love meeting an actual reindeer? He’d caress the animal’s soft fur and hug it tightly as if his life depended on it. He’d even boop its furry – and surprisingly not wet – nose, and the reindeer wouldn’t even flinch. In just a few minutes, they had formed an incredibly adorable bond.
“We’re not getting rid of it, are we?” Henry murmured, head laying on the reindeer’s loin fur.
“No!” Emma exclaimed. Obviously, they wouldn’t get rid of it! She wasn’t entirely sure, but she was almost certain the reindeer was somehow the statue she had ordered but was brought to life through some kind of weird magic thing Storybrooke does to everything and every one who dares set foot on it. She’d tell Regina once the situation was under control so she could turn it back into the statue it was meant to be, and that way, everyone’s happy. But, until that, how long will she have to deal with the animal? “...Maybe. Ugh, I don’t know!”
“We can’t get rid of it! Look at its cute little face!” Henry grabbed the reindeer’s snout from underneath and roughly moved it, so its eyes made direct contact with Emma’s gaze – and Henry’s right. That was one adorable face. Numb, probably even wishing it hadn’t come to life, but adorable. That was straight-up psychological manipulation.
“You know that’s not fair, right?” Emma smiled as she crouched, positioning herself at the height of the reindeer’s face. She put a hand on the snow-covered ground and traced an invisible line through the animal’s extended muzzle with the other one’s index finger. When the end of her finger got its fuzzy nose, she felt something she had never experienced. It felt like something exploding inside of her mind, filling every inch of her body with ecstasy and euphoria, making all her worries disappear for an instant. She suddenly felt the urge to hug the reindeer, so she succumbed to it, burying her face deep inside the thick, white fur around its neck and gasping. “You’re so soft!”
“So…” Henry extended the ‘o’ as long as possible, “Can we keep it?”
Emma groaned. “I hate you,” She murmured under her breath and held her giggling. Lucky for her, Hope was on a playdate with little Robin, so taking care of a crying baby wouldn’t be a problem, but not-so-lucky for her, she only had five hours before Regina came home from work. “We can, but not here. Not for now, at least.”
She grasped its fur so she could stand up and asked Henry to get their coats because they couldn’t stay too long without something warmer to wear. The snowfall was light, but it could increase later. America’s weather is usually unpredictable, but Storybrooke? Storybrooke could have a snowstorm in July, but almost as possible to have a heatwave in December. But it seemed like the weather was getting worse rather than better, so better safe than sorry.
As they walked through the winter wonderland that was Storybrooke, Henry and the reindeer, tied to an old rope they had found in the garage, followed Emma from behind.
“What about Comet?”
“No, Henry, I’ve already told you! No ‘Santa’s Reindeers’ names!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s clichéd!”
“Then how would you name her?”
“I’d come up with something creative, unlike you.”
“Like what?”
“Like… Snowflake !”
“That’s even worse than the names that I picked!”
“It’s not !”
The fight over their new reindeer’s name seemed nowhere near its end. They had been discussing names for her the minute they stepped outside the mansion, but for Emma, the names Henry had picked were… vanilla. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the names, but maybe not for a reindeer? They felt so stereotypical! But, to be fair, she didn’t do a great job either. Snowflake… What was she thinking?! Good thing they were already near the Charmings’ new farm, where they’d surely have some space to keep the reindeer as they wait for Regina to get back from work. And it would give them some time to think of a name.
But why were they bothering to hide the reindeer if they could easily ask her to revert whatever spell the reindeer was under, right? Because this, all this Christmas-y magic-a-looza technically is an emergency, and Regina told them they could call her in case of emergencies. But she could have also meant, as Henry liked to call them, an ‘Avengers level’-threat, and this was definitely not it. Sure, it was for Emma and Henry, but for Regina? She could fix it with a flick of her wrist.
But truth be told… Emma didn’t really want to fix it.
She hated to admit it, but she had grown fond of the reindeer. Maybe it was her inner child speaking and asking her to enjoy all these shenanigans she’d only see on TV; maybe it was Henry’s interestingly enthusiastic reaction to the situation, perhaps even the reindeer itself and its god-blessed fur! But the sheer thought of making the reindeer… well, die, destroyed her. She couldn’t do that to her.
Emma snapped out of her thoughts when she tripped over a welcome mat with the words’ Welcome to the Charmings’ sewn onto it. She cursed under her breath and rang the doorbell, chiming a melody that sounded like the song that Disney plays at the beginning of their movies but thrown into a blender and then into a pit full of wild beasts. They needed to change that doorbell urgently.
“She kinda looks like a Carol.”
“Carol?” Emma couldn’t help but chuckle at her mother’s suggestion. But, thinking about it, the reindeer did look like a ‘Carol.’ She scoffed at her thought, “Carol it is.”
Both sat at the garden swing, two-year-old Neal sleeping in his older sister’s lap as Henry played with Carol and the Charmings’ new dog, Willow. Well, trying to play, at least. The reindeer seemed fond of the boy but didn’t seem fond of his energy. Maybe reindeer weren’t as energetic as dogs? Either way, no matter how far Henry tossed Willow’s ball or how hard he’d tease Carol, she’d just… stood still.
Out of frustration, Henry tossed the ball slightly stronger than he intended, accidentally making it fly across the trees and into the woods.
“Shit,” he whispered. “Hey, mom? I’m going to go pick up the ball!”
He ran towards the fence gate that faced the woods and opened it quickly. Lucky for him, the ball hadn’t gone too deep, so picking it took him only a few minutes. What he didn’t think, however, was that he had left the gate open.
And damn, reindeer are fast.
Faster than what Emma expected, definitely. Though she couldn’t really blame his son for leaving the gate open, she couldn’t blame Carol either. But maybe it was also her fault partially, for realizing the reindeer had run away only when she heard an ear-piercing scream from afar.
Not only did Carol have fled, but she also decided to take a tour at Main Street, where everyone – and Emma meant everyone – that’s annoying is always present. Well, not exactly annoying, but it definitely emphasized the whiny fairytale character stereotype. Elaborate phrases from a bad dubbing work that probably were used to replace curse words, screaming Moaning Myrtle-pitch whenever a minor inconvenience showed whether it’s a fly on their soup or a bat-winged demon, among other things. There’s just no rest for the Savior.
And not only they’re fast, but apparently, a reminder colliding against you hurts like shit. Luckily she learned it the not-so-wrong way, but it was still wrong. Awfully wrong.
Emma stopped short when she saw the mess that was Main Street. The tree lights had fallen, and there was probably a high risk of a shortcut, a few cars that seemed to be either stomped or roughly hit by antlers, and a few citizens lying on the floor. None of them had any signs of injuries or blood, though, so they probably passed out of fear — or, as Emma called it, Disney Syndrome.
Oh man, if only the Dark One were there. The one time he’s needed, he decided to take his wife to ‘meet the world.’ But that was a lame excuse of ‘running away from this god-forsaken town.’
“So…” Henry barely made it to the scene, panting as he held his ma’s arm before his weak legs succumbed. Running from the edge of the woods to the center of the town in less than five minutes wasn’t exactly on his December Bingo Card, but this was Storybrooke they were talking about. Of course, something needed to happen. “What do we do?”
“I’d call your mom, but I feel safer like this,” Emma patted his son’s back. Her breathing was slightly heavy, but definitely not as much as Henry’s. And yet, she still had so much energy left. “Uh… Okay! So, you go right, and I go left.”
“Why? We don’t even know where she is!”
“That’s the idea!” Emma said. “Eventually, Carol will have nowhere else to go and—“
“Who’s Carol?”
“The reindeer, who else?”
“You named the reindeer CAROL ?!”
“Oh, just go!”
Henry didn’t get the chance to speak as he disappeared in Emma’s magical grayish smoke. She sighed, bounced a couple of times as she shook her limbs and removed her gloves. Her tickling hands cackled sparks of pure magic, her own body letting her know it was showtime.
She flicked her wrist, concentrating hard on the place she wanted to be. She pictured the pumpkin stall where she had taken Violet’s horse back when she was the Dark One, but that was way too far from Main Street. Carol was fast, but not that fast.
Then she started looking for places with a forest-y look, but that wasn’t the forest itself. At first she couldn’t find anything no matter how hard she tried. Every place, every corner she pictured didn’t feel like a place a reindeer would go (to be fair, none of the places in Storybrooke were, but here they were). Maybe Carol could’ve sneaked inside a house, or even a restaurant in search of food, but it wasn’t enough.
Her efforts felt useless.
The one time she has a bigger intention, the one time she is determined to be responsible and make her wife proud, she screws everything up. And not only is she ruining her own Christmas, but hundreds of other people’s too. The town Tree was about to fall, cars were wrecked, probably there was a hurt person or two — all because of her.
She thought of giving up. Of telling Regina, she couldn’t handle and accept her mistake. She’d have to live with the consequences of doing something she wasn’t ready for and… well, blame herself. But knowing Regina, she’d tell her it wasn’t her fault when it was. She had a good intention, of course, but sometimes the end makes a bigger impact than the means.
So she dragged her now cooled-down hand to her back pocket, took out her phone and dialed Regina’s number. She pressed the green button—
“Ma! Here she is!”
How this kid managed to scream from such a distance was a miracle. A Christmas miracle, mind her. “Henry?! Where are you?!”
She didn’t get to hear the entire sentence, but she was almost sure she heard ‘park’. Park. Of course, the park! Why didn’t she thought about that before?
So she generated a very detailed picture of the park, shook her arm and wrapped herself on white mist. She was careful not to land on the thin layer of ice that covered the lake; she had fallen there a few times in summer and the water was freezing, she didn’t want to imagine how cold it’d be with this weather.
What she didn’t calculate, however, was that a reindeer twice her weight would be running towards where she spawned.
And man, now she learned how strong a reindeer is the wrong way.
Because as soon as the benches started to materialize, she was hit by a desperate, wild, and probably confused Carol. Her antlers picked Emma from the ground, raised her to the air to the point where she was pretty much flying, and threw her what could have been a few meters long before she fell to a thick heap of snow that luckily softened the impact.
“Ow…!” She whispered.
Everything became a little blurry, but nothing worse than what she had faced before. She saw a silhouette of a boy, of Henry , running towards her, but his pace slowed as he got closer. He crouched and extended his arm, giving Emma his hand so she could pick herself from the ground. But she was still a bit dizzy and, truth be told, exhausted as fuck from running easily three kilometers in five minutes, so she waved his arm away.
“Momma’s gonna rest a while here… in the snow….” Emma panted. She needed to call Regina. So she took a deep breath before she could turn her head to look for her phone, but it had fallen a few inches away from her, and the screen was cracked, which didn’t really help her still blurry vision. “Hey kid, call your mother, would ya?”
“What’s your password–”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Before any of the two could react, dense purple smoke appeared, and from it came the one woman they both needed and didn’t need to be there.
Seeing Regina doing magic was always a delight to the eye, but she handled it like a pro this time. With one flick, she had already tied Carol with a synthetic – and seemingly magical – leash, holding her snout and neck. She got closer to the reindeer, caressed its nose, and kissed its forehead. Carol huffed… and just like that; they had bonded.
“So,” Regina turned around and picked Emma from the ground, coldly handed her the leash and crossed her arms. “What exactly is going on here?”
“I have no idea how to explain what happened,” Emma sighed.
“Well, why don’t you explain this to me on our way home?” Regina rolled her eyes at Emma’s goofyness – or ignorance? Emma wasn’t really sure –, grabbed her hand and nodded her head, commanding Henry to go with them.
“Ooh, boy. Where do I start?”