Chapter Text
November 2014
Emma Swan was used to change.
She had to be. When she was a child, her life used to change at least twice a year and she had no say in the matter. Each time she packed up her stuff and went to a new home she wondered if this would be the time that she got to stay.
It never was, and over time she had learned to embrace her transient lifestyle.
She rented apartments, never seeing the point in purchasing a home she knew she wouldn’t live in for long. She chose a profession that traveled as easily as she did. People would always mess up and end up in jail and where there were people getting arrested, there were bail jumpers.
She couldn’t say she enjoyed it exactly, but if 17 foster families, 6 group homes and 11 months in prison had taught her anything, it was that life was going to happen whether you liked it or not. The best thing you could do was be ready to roll with the punches.
The most recent drastic change in her life involved a little boy that had shown up at her front door to inform her that she was his mother. Her world had turned upside down that day and not just in the ways one would expect. She had quit her job, moved to Maine, then began the arduous process of learning to parent on the fly. Major changes that she didn’t think twice about making.
Three years later, however, those weren’t the changes that she remembered. Instead, when she thought about Storybrooke, she thought of the little things.
Conversations on a dilapidated playground castle.
Hot cocoa with cinnamon.
Glasses of apple cider.
That last one had a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth as she remembered a pair of dark eyes, full of fire, staring her down.
Perhaps the little things weren’t so little after all.
Now, it seemed her life was about to be turned upside down yet again, and like before it was her son at her apartment door that was setting it into motion.
“Emma?”
His voice sounded unsure, even a little confused by her reaction to seeing him. She was certain she was staring. How could she help it?
The last time he had stood here, he had been a boy, certain that he had found the key to unlocking his happiness. His eyes, though wise beyond their years, still held the mischief and wonder of childhood. His cheeks had been round with the last remnants of baby fat.
Now his face was beginning to thin out and when she looked at him, she saw the sprinkling acne that dotted it. When he spoke her name, his voice cracked a bit, sounding nothing like the one she remembered. She had heard his voice begin to change over the years, of course. They talked on the phone almost every week, but somehow coupled with the loss of innocence in his eyes, it sounded nothing like what she was expecting.
“Emma?” he asked again, and she steeled herself against the little heartbreak that hearing her name from her son’s lips brought. She remembered a time when this boy had shyly asked what he was supposed to call her. She knew he was asking if he could call her mom, but she hadn’t known how to respond and had fumbled with her answer.
“Oh! You can just call me Emma, I guess.”
Despite their stilted conversation that day, he had still called her mom every once in a while, but it appeared those days were over. They had ended the day she had driven out of Storybrooke, leaving him in the hands of a woman he called the Evil Queen.
“Come in!” she said heartily, grabbing him in a hug. She hoped the forced cheeriness would help him shake some of the obvious tension, but it didn’t work. The wariness did not drop from his face and the smile he forced onto his face did not reach his eyes.
She gave him some time when entered the apartment, hoping that if she did not comment on it, the awkwardness between them would disappear as they talked. They made small talk, discussing school and his plans for life after graduation, though that was still several years away. He was still in middle school, but his prospects looked good and she was proud of him, though she had nothing to do with it. It seemed the years spent in only the company of his books and his favorite teacher would pay off at last.
“How’s Mary Margaret?” she asked, desperately searching for a safe topic.
He shrugged in response. “The same.”
The accusation was as clear as it was unspoken. Of course, Mary Margaret was the same. Everyone was.
“And….Regina?”
“Mom’s the reason I’m here.”
There it was.
Not “Regina.” Not even “my mother”, as he used to call Regina in her presence, in an attempt to differentiate between the two women in his life. No need for confusion, now that there was only one maternal figure in his life.
Just Mom.
She nodded, absorbing the blow without a word as she tried to figure out why he was here. Their relationship was secure enough, the resentment of her abrupt departure having long since dissipated into a friendly camaraderie that more resembled a relationship between siblings than one between parent and child.
Regular letters and phone calls since the day she left ensured that they would remain fixtures in each other’s lives over the years, though he had stopped speaking about the curse or his relationship with Regina. At first, she had been relieved that he was growing out of his fantasy, but over time, she realized she missed the bond they had shared back in the days of Operation Cobra.
Somewhere along the way, she had gone from being Mom or even the Savior, to just being Emma. They were friends, in that weird sort of way that happens when adults try to relate to teenagers in hopes they would open up to them, but that was it. She no longer caused his eyes to light up with hope. She was just Emma.
Just Emma, the woman that had given him up.
Just Emma, the one he could count on to talk to about school or the crush he had on a girl at school.
Just Emma, the woman that had let him down.
-------------------------------------------
November 2011
“You win, Regina. I’m leaving.”
“Yes, I see that Miss Swan. May I inquire as to why?”
She snorted in derision as she loaded the last of her bags, glancing at Henry out of the corner of her eye. Main Street in Storybrooke was hardly the place for a final showdown with Regina, especially not with the kid watching their every move. Swallowing her frustration, she slammed the trunk closed.
“You were right. This push and pull between us is just going to tear him apart. He needs consistency in his life and he’s not going to get that with the two of us at each other’s throats all the time.”
“Well, I’m glad you are finally able to see reason.”
Emma took a breath to try and control her rage. “Believe me, if I thought I had a prayer of winning this in court, I would sue for custody in heartbeat,” she said as she stole another look at Henry. “The only thing worse than staying here is a messy court battle that we both know you would win.”
It was a low blow, and she could see it land its mark in Regina’s eyes before they returned to their usual unaffected cool. “Be that is it may, Miss Swan, you are the one that has elected to leave.”
That was true and while it would be easy to say that she was giving up in order to protect Henry’s best interest, she also knew it was so much more than that. She simply couldn’t do it anymore.
He thought she was a Savior, that she had all the answers to his problems. After the incident at the mines, when she had almost lost him for good, she just couldn’t bear to look at his wide-eyed adoration for another moment.
She wasn’t a Savior. She certainly wasn’t a mom. She was just Emma, a perpetual screw up that had no business trying to be anything to anyone.
Regina was cold. Some might even go so far as to say she was cruel, but she would take care of him. She would keep him fed, clothed, sheltered and educated. He would never wonder where his next meal was coming from or where he was supposed to go at the end of the day.
When all was said and done, weren’t those the things that really mattered?
She met Regina’s eyes, thinking that perhaps underneath the veil of disdain, she saw something else. Something more, even maybe something akin to understanding and it gave her the courage to swallow her pride.
“Take care of him?”
It was on the tip of Regina’s tongue to snap that she has always taken care of him and that she didn’t need some ex-con from Arizona to tell her how to raise her child. She couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, though, and instead she nodded. “You have my word.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly, turning her full attention to Henry at last. He jumped up and hugged her waist tightly.
“Please don’t go, Mom. Please don’t leave me here with her.”
She fought back the tears and knelt down so that they were at eye level with each other. “She’ll take good care of you.”
“She won’t! She’s evil.”
Regina felt the words wash over her. After hearing them so many times, they no longer felt like a knife in her heart, but they still hurt. She waited, wondering what Emma’s response would be.
“Hey, this isn’t good-bye, kid. I may be moving back to Boston, but I’m not giving up on us or on Operation Cobra.”
She might have known the sainted Savior wouldn’t defend her. Still the look on the younger woman’s face when Henry stood up and turned his back on her was so achingly familiar that she couldn’t bring herself to comment on it.
“Fine! Go then! It’s not like this is the first time you’ve given me up.” He turned back around to watch the effect of his final words and spoke deliberately. “See you around. Emma .”
He ran off, leaving the two women to stare at the space he had occupied a moment earlier. Wondering when she had become so soft, Regina spoke up.
“You’re doing the right thing, Miss Swan.”
“I’m sure you think so, seeing how it is exactly what you’ve wanted all along.”
Regina just shook her head without bothering to answer and turned to follow her son. Though she had spent the last few months trying every trick in the book to get Emma to leave, the fact remained that the decision had never been hers to make. Emma had decided to take her hat out of this fight, but somehow she was still left to deal with the fallout. It hardly seemed fair.
“Regina, wait.”
Regina turned back, trying to contain the fury on her face. “He is very much your son, you know. Both of you have decided that I am to blame for all your problems.”
Emma flinched. “I’m sorry, Regina. That wasn’t fair.”
Regina watched the mixture of hurt, resignation, and parental love on her nemesis’ face. It was a potent combination and one that she knew well. She only had to look in the mirror at any point in the past year to see it.
Trying to look unaffected, she just shrugged in response, but before she left again, she watched Emma walk up to the diner to fill up her thermos with coffee and say good-bye to Ruby and Eugenia.
“Miss Swan?”
“Yes?”
She hesitated for a beat before speaking. “If you want to write to him, I will make sure he receives the letters.”
----------------------------------------------
November 2014
She nodded towards the box in his hands, trying once again to find something to say. “What’s in the box, kid?”
He winced when she called him kid, as though he knew she did so as a way to keep him at arm’s length. “I’m not sure you’re ready.”
She laughed, as she thought she was expected to, at the reminder of the fact that he had said the same thing about the story book all those years ago. She received no laughter in response, and she stared at him wondering what had happened since she had seen him last.