Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ONCE UPON A TIME, In the heart of the Enchanted Forest, where magic wove its way through every leaf and whispering breeze, a child was hidden away. She was a princess, born of noble blood, yet fated to live in secret. Her parents, a beloved king and queen, had been forced into exile by a dark force so powerful that even speaking its name invited ruin. To protect their daughter, they entrusted her to the care of Rosetta, a fairy godmother whose light was said to shine even in the deepest shadows.

Under Rosetta's watchful eye, the princess thrived. She grew up among the trees and stars, learning the language of the wind and the wisdom of the earth. Though she knew little of her true lineage, too young to understand the history, there was an unshakable magic within her, an unspoken destiny bound to the fate of all who dwelled in the realm of fairytales.

But fate is rarely kind.

When the child was just seven years old, a terrible darkness descended upon the land. The Evil Queen, consumed by vengeance, unleashed a curse unlike any before—a curse that would strip every fairytale character of their happy endings and cast them into a world without magic, without memory, without hope.

Aware of impending danger, Rosetta acted swiftly. With only moments to spare, she wove a powerful protection spell, encircling the cottage in light. But as the curse struck, the unexpected happened. The spell did not shield the cottage from the curse— the princess absorbed it. Magic rippled through her small frame, altering the very fabric of what was meant to be.

The Enchanted Forest vanished. Its people, its stories, its very essence was ripped from time and thrust into an unfamiliar world. They became strangers to themselves, their pasts rewritten by the Queen's cruel design. But somewhere, buried beneath the illusion, the truth remained.

And though the princess was cast into this new world alongside them, she carried something no one else did—a fragment of the past, a spark of magic untouched by the Queen's curse.

The Savior was coming, destined to break the spell and restore what was lost. But would the hidden princess, now lost in a world without magic, be the key to unlocking the final piece of the puzzle?

Only time would tell.

And so, the story began...

Chapter Text

pilot — chapter one
( season one, episode one)

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was an enchanted forest filled with all the classic characters we know. Or think we know. One day they found themselves trapped in a place where all their happy endings were stolen. Our world. This is how it happened...

storybrooke, maine
(present)

The wind wasn't particularly strong, but as it blew through Rosie's hair a chill crept up her spine. The street lights cast a gentle glow against the abandoned street she walked aimlessly, but in the center of town was a yellow car that Rosie hadn't ever seen before, and standing beside said yellow car was a boy she definitely knew.

"Henry!" Rosie yelled, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. It wasn't often she spotted Henry Mills wandering the streets of Storybrooke by himself, and it was even rarer to find him out so late at all. If the bell-tower worked, Rosie figured it probably would've read sometime after eleven.

"Oh, hi Rosie!" Henry smiled brightly, leaning in to whisper something to the woman standing beside him that Rosie couldn't distinguish from halfway across the street. "This is Emma! She's my Mom."

Rosie had only just made it across the street when Henry deemed it appropriate to introduce her to the blonde. If she would've been prepared for the information, she definitely wouldn't have stumbled over her shoes in shock as her eyes flickered sideways to truly take in the woman.

"That's... that's nice, Henry, but it's late, your Mom is probably worried beyond belief, and I'm sure Emma's tired. If that clock worked, I'm sure it would be close to midnight, and Regina wants you inside by eight o'clock."

"She's not my Mom." Henry huffed, and Rosie rolled her eyes fondly. She did adore the little boy, even if he was always dragging her around town claiming their neighbors and teachers were fairytale characters. Most of them just didn't make sense, Mr. Gold was far too nice to be Rumplestiltskin, but Rosie figured Ms. Blanchard fit Snow White exceptionally. She did tell Henry that, against what was probably her better judgement.

"She has a nice warm bed for you to sleep in, and I'm sure there's already a glass of water on your nightstand. You don't have it so bad, Hen. Definitely not bad enough to keep Emma out any later than you already have tonight." Rosie was kind, so unbelievably kind that sometimes it made Henry feel bad when he yelled at her, and right now was no exception. His head bowed slightly, his feet kicking at the cracking pavement beneath his shoes.

"You wouldn't happen to know where he lives, do you?" Emma piped up, and Rosie quickly looked toward her again, trying to find traces of Henry in her appearance. They didn't have the same eyes, Henry's beared far more brown than Emma's, but in the swirls of green around his pupil the resemblance was basically uncanny.

Rosie gave Henry her best interpretation of Regina's unamused stare, her head lulling to the side as she figured Henry had been less than forth coming. "Right up on Mufflin Street. It's the biggest house on the block. Mayor privileges and all."

"Evil Queen privileges!" Henry babbled back, and Rosie could only pull her palm down her face as she shook her head.

"You're the Mayor's kid?" Emma looked down at Henry, her arms folded over her chest. Henry sighed, sinking farther into himself as his shoulders lulled forward.

"Maybe." Henry admitted, and Emma sighed, shaking her head in the same exasperated manner that Rosie had. "It doesn't matter! Everyone in this town... they need help!"

"They don't look like they need help to me, Henry."

"They do. They just don't know it."

Emma sighed, looking toward Rosie. "He doesn't believe me when I tell him I'm fine." The teenager shrugged, unable to entirely mask her annoyance. She must've assured Henry a few hundred times that she was fine and most defiantly not a cursed fairytale character, but he never quite believed her.

"You live in a tent." Henry rebutted, and Rosie huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"It's a nice tent. It's red!" She defended herself and her home, unsure of where the problem lied. It wasn't the warmest shelter, especially not as October set into Maine, but it was the best she could accomplish and that was just perfect to her.

"It has a hole in it." Henry said back and Rosie huffed, turning her head to the side before she crossed her arms over her chest, choosing to ignore the chill that became progressively more apparent against her back.

"How old are you?" Emma turned to question her, and Rosie frowned at the sudden attention.

"Seventeen." She mumbled, her blue eyes shining bright beneath the street lamps.

"Will both of you just get in the car?" Emma gestured to the still running yellow car, and begrudgingly Henry turned toward the passenger door.

"Why do I have to get in the car?" Rosie frowned, but found herself following the command regardless. Emma didn't seem so bad, even if she tried to hide behind the leather jacket unzipped around her shoulders.

"Because I don't think he will if you don't." Henry nodded, and Rosie sighed, gesturing for Henry to climb in first and settle into the backseat before she climbed into the passenger seat, unable to recall the last time she'd been in the warmth of a running car.

Graham had let her sleep in the squad car just last week, but he'd kept the keys with him overnight and by time he'd pulled up to the station the next morning Rosie had already been two hours deep into an opening shift at Granny's. To say that she'd missed comfortable warmth beneath the moonlight was an understatement.

She'd definitely made her comfort too apparent, because as soon as Emma had her foot on the pedal gaining speed toward Mufflin street, she reached out for the vent and pushed it farther toward Rosie. The teenager didn't say anything, unsure of what to say, but she sank further into the seat and let her eyes wander on the empty streets.

The winding turns that lead to Mufflin street were familiar and quiet, something that Rosie had always adored, though unless she was watching Henry, she never ventured this deep into the towns suburbs. Mary Margaret Blanchard lived in a little apartment near main street that she passed from time to time, but Mufflin street and beyond was a territory of little exploration.

"Please don't take me back." Henry whimpered as Rosie slid out of the yellow bug, the cold air ambushing her the second she'd reached for the silver handle. She attempted to remain unaffected by the cold, but as she waited for Henry to climb out of the car, her knees buckled with a lingering chill.

"I have to. I'm sure your parents are worried sick about you." Emma huffed, steps ahead of Henry and trudging through the unclasped gate. Rosie slammed the car door behind his warm body, sighing softly as she followed after them silently.

"I don't have parents. Just a mom, and she's evil." Henry reiterated again, and this time Emma couldn't let it fall past her untouched. She paused, turning her attention toward him fully.

"Evil? That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"

Henry didn't think so, and Rosie's heart skipped in her chest when his head lulled to the side and his hazel eyes that were almost brown melted into thin lines. "She is. She doesn't love me. She only pretends to."

Emma melted, fully and entirely, bending forward until her eyes were level with Henry's. "Kid, I'm sure that's not true." She began, so tenderly and passionately that Rosie wanted to believe her for the hell of it, but then the front door creaked open and that sinking feeling in her stomach got just the slightest bit worse. Henry Mills did not have it bad. Not by a long shot. But there was something unsettling about Regina Mills that even Rosie couldn't turn into goodness. She didn't pity him, not fully, but she could sympathize with his uncertainty.

"Henry?" Regina gasped, squinting into the darkness before her eyes adjusted to the lack of light and she rushed forward. "Henry!" She gasped in relief, throwing her arms around his neck and back. "Oh! Are you okay? Where have you been? What happened?"

"I found my real mom." He snapped, storming into the house, stomping past Graham who was awkwardly cowering in the doorway.

"I'll go talk to him." Rosie assured, rushing past Regina who only waved her hand in dismissal. Even after years of babysitting Henry, Regina hadn't quite warmed up to full conversations with the teenager. Rosie never expected anything more.

She hurried into the house, managing to catch up to Henry before he made it up the staircase. She called out for him, pushing her brown hair behind her ears as she leaned up against the wall, siphoning the warmth out of the paint from the heat coming up out of the radiators.

"I know this is all you've wanted for the longest time. I know this is about more than just the curse, Henry, but you can't just push Regina away either. Maybe she is the Evil Queen, maybe she deserves a little heartbreak for everything she did and ruined in the Enchanted Forest, but that's not you. You're not a villain, you don't hurt people just because you feel like they've hurt you. I know Regina raised you better than that, but I also know Ms. Blanchard is teaching you better than this. I had her, remember? I remember her lectures about kindness. They stick around. I think maybe you should show a little bit of that to Regina, huh? After all, she did just get you that Star Wars lego you wanted, I'd hate to see her take it away before you get to bag four." Rosie cracked a little smile, and that was all it took for Henry to break, his lips quivering upwards as he nodded his head.

"I don't think she loves me, Rosie. I don't think she can." He whispered, and Rosie knew that despite everything, Henry fully believed that. He fully believed Regina didn't love him with or without the addition of magic or fairytales.

"I know she loves you, but if you can't believe that right now, I'll believe it for you." She promised, holding her pinky out to him. "Go get ready for bed, we've still got school tomorrow."

"You'll have a hot chocolate for me?"

"Don't I always?" Rosie mused, throwing Henry a wink over her shoulder before she walked out of the house, passing Graham and Regina on the way. "He just went upstairs to put his pajamas on." She told Regina, and the woman nodded, walking into the house without another word.

"Hey, there's a free seat up front. It's gonna get pretty windy tonight." Emma threw out an open invitation to crash her yellow beetle, and Rosie's face warmed with appreciation, but she found herself shaking her head.

"Got an early morning, I wouldn't want to wake you. It was nice meeting you though, Emma." Rosie smiled, already beginning on her way toward the forest where her little red tent was concealed by overgrown trees. Maybe one day they'd fall on her during a storm, but they've held up for this long.

If Emma said anything back, Rosie didn't hear it, the howling wind too loud in her ears as it whipped past her head and caught the loose strands of her hair.

— 🕊️ —

The next day, Rosie rushed down the hallway with a stack of books balanced in her arms. Her pants were splashed with dirt, the puddles that lined the roads and unfortunate presence on her walk to work that morning. She hadn't been at Granny's long, only two hours because then she had to meet Henry at the bus stop with his hot chocolate and walk the both of them to school, but she made just enough money to buy a slice of pizza in the cafeteria later, and her stomach growled at the simple thought. Rosie couldn't remember the last time she ate. Probably the morning before now when Granny had baked her cupcake randomly.

She was about to dip into one of the high school classes when she caught a glimpse of red down the hallway, Emma's leather jacket unmistakable against her peers silhouettes.

"Emma!" She called, a bright smile on her lips. Her hair was parted down the center of her head, two neat braids tied off and held together by red ribbons that curled down the middle of her back. She didn't have much in her little tent, but she had just enough to make do. "I didn't think you'd still be in town."

"Yeah well." Emma waved a thick brown book around once Rosie had caught up to her, and the brunette nodded understandingly, shaking her head seconds later as she sighed.

"He's a good kid. Even with all of this curse nonsense, he's a good kid. His world isn't so bad, not really anyways, I mean if you ignore the murdering Queens and curses." Rosie said, and Emma nodded, her green eyes soft as she looked down at the text on the hardcover of the book.

"I know." She sighed, and Rosie realized that his was so hard for her because Henry was a good kid. He was perfect, even with his imagination. Whether Emma wanted to give him up or not, it was probably still a big pill to swallow when he showed up at her door with those damn puppy eyes and sometimes shaggy haircut when he ignored Regina's command to brush it. "Hey, you wouldn't happen to know any motels in the area would you?"

"Granny's is a bed and breakfast, right in the heart of town. I can meet you there tonight, get you checked into a room. I work there and... well I can't actually remember the last time anyone's spent a night. Must've been years ago, definitely not since I started there." Rosie rambled just slightly, just enough for Emma's lips to quiver in amusement as she looked down at the endearing teenager.

"And how long have you worked there?" She questioned, not sure why it mattered or why she cared, but it seemed like the only question she could throw around. Nothing else came to mind.

"Four years. I've been told I make the best coffee in all of Storybrooke." Rosie smiled brightly, and Emma nodded. Rosie would've been thirteen four years ago, and the thought of a kid that young being behind the register because she needed to be was a painfully familiar one.

"Granny's bed and breakfast. I'll be there." Emma confirmed and Rosie beamed, bouncing on her toes as she nodded.

"Okay! I'll see you then! I have to get to class! Bye Emma!"

Emma craned her head to the side, watching Rosie as she spun around and retraced her steps back to the room she'd almost been inside when she noticed Emma. There was something about the brunette that the blonde couldn't let go. Maybe she saw herself  in Rosie, an abanadoned kid with no family, or maybe there was something else about her. Either way, Emma found herself waving at the retreating shadow, whispering her own goodbye. "Bye, Rosie."

— 🕊️—

Rosie stood behind the register at the bed and breakfast, still in the clothes she'd worn to school, but her hair had been pulled out of the two braids a while ago. Her curls had a hue of blonde to them as she pulled her hair over her shoulders and allowed the overhead light to wash across her frame. It wasn't often she worked back here, Granny never had anyone back her, but she'd specially requested to wait around for Emma. As the night grew later and later outside the window, the hope of her returning like promised slowly disintegrated.

"You're out all night, and you're going out again." Granny sighed from all the way up the stairs, her voice drained as she and Ruby went back and forth like they did every day about something; anything. Even with the arguing happening upstairs, Rosie barely glanced up from her book, gnawing on her bottom lip as she followed along with the characters in the story. Alice in Wonderland. It was a riveting story, Rosie supposed.

Her head snapped up when the front door jingled open, and her chest inflated with hope as blue eyes searched desperately to recognize familiar red. It didn't take long. Emma still had that leather jacket around her shoulders, although this time it was partially zipped up her chest. Rosie figured it was probably chilly outside, no surprise given as it was approaching the beginning of November already.

"I should have moved to Boston." Ruby huffed, capturing both Emma and Rosie's attention. The blonde raised her eyebrows in alarm, but Rosie only waved her hand around unfazed.

"That's Ruby and Granny. They're usually not this loud. Well, I guess they are. But usually they save these fights for the kitchen, not the bed and breakfast." She explained and Emma nodded hesitatantly.

"I'm sorry that my heart attack interfered with your plans to sleep your way down the Eastern Seaboard." Granny followed Ruby down the stairs, neither of them glancing at Rosie or even noticing Emma until their feet were planted firmly on the floor. "Is this that friend you were talking about, Ella Rose?"

Emma shot Rosie a look at the mention of her full name, and the teenager deflated, a gleam of annoyance washing over her features as the name fell onto her shoulders. She'd told Granny a few hundred times that it was just Rosie, but similar to Regina, neither woman ever listened to her. "This is Emma. She'll be staying for a couple of days... right?"

"Um, yeah." Emma nodded, looking back at Granny who nodded, taking in all the information with her hands folded in front of her chest. Rosie doesn't remember her heart attack. She supposes that it might've happened one of the days she wasn't working, but with how often Ruby and Granny bring it up, she's not entirely sure. What she does know, is that Granny never had a heart attack while she was working, but what did she know about peoples private lives; especially Granny's.

"Would you like a forest view or a square view room? There's a little bit of an uncharge for the square view, but the forest view, you can see my tent. It's a cool tent, you shouldn't listen to Henry." Rosie leaned close, her words whispered just enough for them to not reach Granny's ear. She figured the woman had to know of her tent by now, you could see it out of a few windows if the wind was strong enough, but nobody had ever stopped to question it, so Rosie assumed it didn't matter.

"Waive it!" Granny insisted from the middle of the foyer, her eyes wide as she finally seemed to realize that they had a willing to pay customer. "Rent's due, Ella Rose."

"Rosie." The girl muttered between her breath, dropping her eyes to the register as she waited for an answer from Emma.

"Square is fine." Emma smiled softly at Rosie and the teenager nodded, scribbling down the information as fast as she possibly could, but she paused when she came upon the line for Emma's last name, something that she didn't know.

"Can I have your last name Emma?" She asked softly, but before she could finish explaining why, or wait for Emma to answer her, Mr. Gold piped up from the back of the room and Rosie's stare bounced to him.

"Emma. What a lovely name." He complimented, and Rosie giggled softly, shaking her head at the bewildered expression on Emma's face now that she was beneath the mans unbroken attention. Rosie had never had any problems with him. In fact, he was oddly kind to her when it mattered, but Granny moved with tension that spoke to her fear. Her hands ruffled through the til until she pulled out an isolated bundle of cash, handing it over to Gold over the counter.

"It's all here." Granny explained and Mr. Gold nodded, reaching forward to collect what was his. Rosie didn't have a problem with Mr. Gold owning most of the buildings and businesses around her, she figured somebody had to given they never have any visitors, but her fellow townspeople all seem to be wary of him with or without a reason to be.

"Yes, of course it is, dear. Thank you." He nodded his head, never bearing a smile, but Rosie had never seen that even once, so she didn't take it to heart. "You enjoy your stay, Emma."

"Mr. Gold!" She called out, watching him begin to walk away. "You forgot your chocolate." She held out a singular pillow chocolate, nothing extravagant, but ever since she'd worked her first shift at Granny's, anytime Mr. Gold came in, she offered him a piece of chocolate and he never turned it down, even if Granny glared at her like she was insane every time it happened.

"Thank you, Ms. Finch." He bowed his head and Rosie smiled wide. "Come by the shop tomorrow, dearie. I've just got a new shipment in."

"I have enough for the sword now!" She exclaimed, her eyes bright and full of interest. She looked like any other teenager now, with her head held high and her confidence untouched, but then she glanced at Granny, felt the pressure of her intense stare, and that confident glow melted into shyness.

"You're still not getting that sword, dearie." He informed and Rosie groaned, much to his amusement. Mr. Gold didn't laugh. Not genuinely at least. He laughed if you were being stupid, if you thought that you could possibly get out from paying him for the month, but never if he found something funny. Instead, when he found something funny, or when he found someone tolerable, his eyebrows were the telling feature. They always raised upwards like he was surprised to even like you at all, let alone have the time to find you funny. Rosie received that look from him many times over.

Mr. Gold sent one cold glance to Ruby before he slipped out of the bed and breakfast, and Rosie could practically feel Granny relax beside her. "Who's that?" Emma asked.

"That's Mr. Gold. He doesn't like very many people, but I think he likes you." Rosie explained, and Emma quirked an amused eyebrow, not at all worried about whether Mr. Gold liked her or not, but then she remembered Rosie was still only seventeen, and whether someone liked you or not was practically her entire world. Emma remembers how much trouble that had gotten her into as a kid and a teenager.

"He owns this place." Ruby mused from the window, her fingers playing with the sheer curtains that only ever muted sunlight falling in rather than blocking it entirely. Emma turned her head at the sound of her voice, curious to know more.

"The inn?" She questioned, figuring that was why Granny had mentioned rent and subsequently why she'd just watched an entire cash exchange happen so nonchalantly.

"No. The town." Granny said, and color drained from Emma's face slightly. Rosie couldn't figure out why, but she didn't suppose she really cared either. "So, how long will you be staying with us?"

"A week." Emma nodded, and Rosie's head snapped upright again, her blue eyes wide and focused on Emma's green. She didn't know why, but she liked this girl. Part of her wanted Emma to stick around for Henry, to either patch things up with him entirely, or work out a way to at the very least try and find a relationship. But, part of her wanted Emma to stay for herself. She loves Henry. She's been perfectly okay with having Henry as her only confidant since she was eight years old, but now that the premise of having someone else... Rosie didn't want to let that go. New friends never came around in Strorybrooke. It was like they weren't even on the map.

Emma caught Rosie's bright glance, and she knew that despite every instinct to run home, she made the right choice staying. But, she wouldn't sacrifice anymore time than she'd already allotted. She felt for these kids, could sympathize with these kids, but her life had to keep moving now that she even had one at all. "Just a week." She clarified, watching to see if disappointment filled Rosie's eyes, but instead she only sat up straighter on the stool she was perched on, a dazzling haze sparking up the centers of her eyes.

"Great. Welcome to Storybrooke." Granny completed the transaction, probably having forgotten that Rosie was the one to start it, and reached for one of the keys hanging on the wall behind them both. Rosie was practically a ball of uncontainable excitement, her foot bouncing as she shifted her gaze to Granny.

"Can I step out and help Emma with her bags?" She questioned softly, completely forgetting that Henry had dragged Emma here in the middle of the night and that she most definitely did not have any kind of luggage on her. Either way, Granny nodded her permission, and Emma led her outside, not saying a single word about her lack of baggage.

"Can I ask you a question, kid?" Emma asked once they were outside, the door pulled taut behind them and the wind a loud enough companion to drown out their conversation.

"Sure." Rosie shrugged, glancing up at Emma as she kicked at a painted pebble on the sidewalk.

"Henry. He's safe, right?" There was evident worry in Emma's tone, and Rosie could only wonder what had led her to that thought. Had she spoken to him since last night? Spoken to Regina? She didn't have these hesitations last night, and it didn't seem like she had them in the hallway earlier.

"Of course he is." She assured, her eyebrows pulled together in confusion. "What happened?"

"I had a run in with Regina." Emma sighed, shaking her head in contemplation. Rosie grimaced, knowing that most conversations with Regina only went one way.

"Regina is... a hard person to be around. Henry feels that. Nobody can stand to have a conversation with her unless theres no way out of it, and that leaves him out a lot of the time. And she's busy. I mean, she's the Mayor, of course she's busy, but Henry's an only child to a single parent. I guess to him, having a babysitter four times a week seems a bit like neglect, even if he loves me. And he's definitely not thrilled about the no TV rule Regina has. He doesn't know how much worse it could be because this is the worst thing he's ever experienced. But he is safe, and he is loved. Regina just doesn't know how to express it in a way that he can understand. She buys all of his favorite snacks every single week. That kid has not gone a day without Spiderman fruit snacks in his backpack since he was four, and he will not share them, even now. He doesn't know that Regina could very easily not buy them. I mean, I'm sure he does, but to him, it's her job to buy them for him because she's his Mom. Every kid thinks their parents owe them the world when thats all they've ever been given. It's a good thing. I think." Rosie tried to explain, but Regina was quite an unexplainable person, and Henry was quite an all over the place kid even on his best days. Everything about her, and him, was so intricately formed, like there were years of backstory to just the way she curled her hands at her sides in anger and he didn't freeze in the face of confrontation.

"You're pretty wise for kid." Emma mused, and Rosie rolled her eyes.

"Henry thinks it's because I was raised by a fairy." She teased, knowing that was about the last thing Emma wanted her to bring up. "I was not raised by a fairy." She clarified, although it was relatively pointless as Emma definitely knew that was not the truth.

"Who were you raised by?" Emma questioned softly, hesitantly. Rosie didn't mind the conversation, almost thankful that somebody had asked. Henry was the only one who ever did, but Rosie loved talking about the forest more than he loved to listen. She hadn't gotten to talk about her tent in weeks, not anything more than just defending it at least.

"I don't know." She shrugged, "I mean, obviously I had parents at one point, but I don't remember them. I remember a woman, she had red hair, she guided me to this clearing in the woods but then she ran away. It might've been my Mom, but then I try and picture myself with red hair and I don't think it works, so maybe it wasn't. I've lived in that tent since I was seven. I found it at Mr. Gold's and he let me take it. It didn't have a hole in it back then, but that's only really a problem when it pours and the water pools off the tree branches." Rosie was so indifferent to her situation that for the first time, Emma could see how different they were. Even when she wasn't thinking about her parents as a kid, some part of her was still constructing fantasies to do with them, but Rosie seemed so detached from the idea. Like she couldn't even fathom missing out on having a mother figure.

Rosie watched Emma unlock the trunk, rummaging through different things until she pulled out a grey hoodie with a Swan embroidered on the breast. "Here." Emma threw her the sweatshirt, closing the trunk once her hands were free.

"Oh, it's okay—" Rosie tried to decline, standing awkwardly in the street with the hoodie held away from her chest. She wasn't sure when the last time she showed was, but Henry had mentioned that her clothes smelled like outside this morning, and she wasn't sure that was a scent Emma wanted absorbing into her clothes even if the Inn had a washer.

"Kid, you've been shivering since we met last night. Just take the sweatshirt." Emma sighed, raising an eyebrow. Rosie smiled softly, unable to help herself, and slipped it over her head eagerly.

"Thank you." She mused, already fiddling with the strings laced through the hood. She hand't had a hoodie in years, and never one so plush, though she could tell it had definitely been worn out since it was originally purchased. That didn't matter to Rosie, all she cared about was the soft inner lining keeping the wind from crawling up her spine.

Emma didn't seem to know how to react to Rosie's appreciation, a sudden gleam of horror casting upon her green eyes. Instead, she just shrugged, stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her jeans. "You can bring that in if you want. Get away from the desk for a while."

"That's not honest." Rosie stuttered, seemingly unaware that she was even at liberty to make that kind of decision. Sure she had stolen, but only because she needed to. Sure she had lied, but only to survive. Being dishonest just because she could... well that seemed like quite the sticky situation.

"No, but it's not hurting anyone. Who else is coming up to that desk tonight?" Emma quirked an eyebrow, opening the passenger side door so she could retrieve the grey backpack she'd been talking about. She held it out to Rosie, smirking in accomplishment when the teenager begrudgingly took hold of her strap.

"I've never... what would you call this? Skipping out on a shift?" Rosie asked Emma, her head turned toward the blonde curiously as they retraced their steps back to the Inn.

"It's not skipping out if you're going to come back. Who even taught you that phrase?" Emma scoffed, her eyebrows crinkling in amusement as she let her body tumble into Rosie's. The teenager grinned, shoving her back though the motion was almost painfully insignificant. Emma hardly even wobbled on her shoes, but Rosie looked incredibly proud of herself so she didn't mention it.

"Regina. One time I saw her yelling at Mr. Glass, he's a reporter, and she said he was skipping out." Rosie grinned, and Emma rolled her eyes. Of course it was Regina, somehow it didn't surprise her that Regina had sunken her claws into nearly every person in this town even if they barely had any association. "Henry thinks he's that Genie from Aladdin, and that Regina trapped him in her mirror back in the Enchanted Forest, and that's why his last name is Glass. Has he told you that he also thinks Dr. Hopper is Jiminy Cricket partly because his last name is Hopper and crickets hop."

Emma grimaced, shaking her head. Most of Henry's rambling was packed with some pretty odd coincidences, some that left her slightly shaken though she'd never admit that, but trying to associate their names with these fairytales was silly. A reminder that Henry was really only ten years old. "You just let him talk, don't you?"

"Yeah." Rosie giggled, pushing open the door to the bed and breakfast and leading Emma up the stairs, waving almost nervously at Granny as she stumbled up. Emma had to bite back her laughter as she watched the teenager attempt to appear inconspicuous. "But, in the beginning, I was just listening to the stories. I don't think my parents ever showed me any of the movies or read me the stories, if they did, I don't remember them, so Henry used it as an opportunity to show me his book and then we'd watch the movie. It was the only way he could swing Regina into letting him watch TV whenever I came over to babysit."

"He really doesn't listen, does he?" Emma scoffed, a bright grin on her face, although Rosie didn't think she realized how far her smile had stretched. Rosie didn't think she realized at all how much Henry had grown on her, but it defiantly wasn't her place to bring it up.

"No. But, he didn't listen as a toddler either. So, I think it's just in his blood." Rosie noted, remembering the few instances she'd crossed paths with Regina and Henry before she'd officially become his babysitter when he was five and she was twelve.

"Oh, it's definitely in his blood." Emma snorted, and Rosie took one look at the blonde before she nodded, seeing the resemblance in their behaviors just by glancing at Emma with the intent to see them at all.

"I really should get back down to the desk, but I work the early shift before school tomorrow. I'll see you then?" Rosie tried not to sound too hopeful, but she knows she failed by the way Emma's head fell just slightly to the side and her eyes seemed to soften.

"I'll be there." Emma threw her a thumbs up, and Rosie smiled, nodding more to herself than to Emma before she turned on her heels and flew back down the stairs.

She wiggled up onto the stool, grabbed her book, and tried to forget about how Henry's curse was becoming more and more unforgettable.

— 🕊️—

enchanted forest
(twenty-eight years ago)

A shoe-less child frolicked through an open clearing whimsically. Her yellow dress pooled around her ankles, made from the most expensive material down in the local village. Sewn flowers around the hem of the sundress matched a handful of the white buds spread throughout the field, but most of the flowers that brightened the greenery were vibrant and colorful; planted by her very own hands.

The sky was bright, not a single cloud in sight, and the child couldn't have been more thrilled with the weather that had befallen the kingdom that day. Just last week, the skies had opened up for days, leaving dresses sodden with mud and curious children locked away from lighting inside small cottages.

She fell to her knees in front of a bush rather uncoordinatedly, a bright smile on her lips as she peered close to a pink butterfly slurping nectar from a bright red flower that matched the flush on her smooth cheeks. "Hello, little butterfly." She whispered sweetly, reaching out to brush a gentle finger against the wings on the insects back.

The butterfly fluttered its wings, and Rosie giggled at the ticklish sensation, dissolving into harder laugher when the butterfly picked up its little head and fluttered around her hand curiously before it landed on her finger. "Hello. I won't hurt you. I promise." She grinned, once again looking closely at the butterfly, her blue eyes memorizing every inconsistent stroke of pink across its back.

"Rosie!" The child perked up at the call of her name, looking back at the cottage in the distance where a fairy with fiery red hair fluttered her wings outside of the door. The sun casted shimmering beams upon her, and with its kiss her pearly skin only intensified.

"Goodbye, little butterfly. Come visit me soon please." Rosie whispered, letting the butterfly depart from her finger on its own terms before she was clambering up onto her feet and bunching her dress up between her knuckles, eagerly rushing back toward the house. "Coming!" She bellowed, a spritely smile on her face.

— 🕊️—

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Rosie sigh, shifting once again as she laid upon the forest floor, branches and rocks only covered by whatever thin material made up the red tent. It wasn't often Rosie had trouble falling asleep, but lately, she couldn't help but wonder when the crickets had gone away, or it she'd imagined them in the first place. The forest was so quiet now, but in her dream's, Rosie's almost certain she remembers rolling water and chirping birds and buzzing crickets.

She sighed again, tossing onto her other side as she bunched the fabric of Emma's hoodie around her fists, glad to be warm within her tent for the first time in months. The small blanket she kept beneath her head as a pillow would hardly cover her entire body, but it was a fine enough pillow when she was able to keep still.

Rosie huffed now, aggressively flipping onto her back as she stared up at the sky through the hole in the top of the tent. The stars were bright, but in her dreams they're brighter and the skies are bluer. There's not an ounce of exhaustion in her, but then the bell tower dings, and her eyebrows pull taut in confusion until the slightest bit of her registers Henry's words of warning. 'Emma's gonna change things'. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe he was right. Whatever the answer, Rosie fell asleep minutes later, not waking up until the breeze guided a leaf through the hole in her tent and onto her face.

Chapter Text

the thing you love most — chapter two
(season one, episode two)

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Emma sat at the counter with a news paper and an apple, looking between the agitating print and the teenager who looked happy as a clam behind the counter with an apron tied around her waist. Her brown hair was tied back into a ponytail today, showing off the gold earrings fastened around the lobe of her ears. It looked like it could be a dove on the students, but Emma wasn't entirely sure about that assumption, safely sticking with the fact that there was definitely a bird of some sort on the earrings at least.

"Here you go!" Rosie smiled brightly, handing Emma a mug of hot chocolate with a generous dollop of whipped cream on top over the counter. Emma frowned, halfway into taking a bite out of her deliciously red apple.

"I thought you were bringing me a coffee." Emma quirked an eyebrow at the teenager, looking down at the mug of hot chocolate that was dusted with cinnamon; just the way she's liked it for years. Rosie certainly hadn't done this herself, and Emma hates to admit that she had been less than observant in the last ten or so minutes.

"Well I was... but you have an admirer." Rosie had always wanted to say that, and while she was almost certain that wasn't entirely the right context (she's almost certain that its mostly used for romantic encounters, but that could be wrong) she let it slip anyways, too excited at the premise of something different happening around here. The chime of the bell tower throughout the night had proven a glorious backing track, like something inside of her had either finally gotten a sufficient amount of rest, or like it had woken up all together.

Emma glanced over her shoulder, and Rosie giggled, turning away from the sight of Emma turning Graham down to untie her apron and collect what she needed for classes. She was tired of this same boring routine, work, classes, babysitting, back to work, maybe throw in a visit to Mr. Gold's shop if he offered and she thought about it, but that was all her life had ever consisted of. Rosie wasn't sure when it started bothering her, but she was growing antsy just watching the bell tower slowly tick from the corner of the diner.

When it was finally time for Rosie to leave, because she'd never bail even a minute early, she went to grab her backpack and capture Henry's attention, but the little boy was already on his feet and stalking over to her with Emma.

"You don't have to walk me to school today." He informed her, and Rosie frowned tightly.

"I walk you to school everyday... and we go to the same school, I have to walk there anyways." Rosie couldn't understand where this was coming from, but she figures Henry just wanted some time alone with Emma, so she tries not to let her disappointment show that she won't be getting out of here as soon as she likes. There's still thirty minutes before she needs to be in class, but she leaves early just so that Henry has enough time to update her on the latest curse nonsense.

"Yeah, but Graham always gives you the best tips! Emma's gonna walk me to school, and you're gonna get Graham another coffee!" He smiled encouragingly, and both Emma and Rosie rolled their eyes at his prodding manipulation. If he wasn't so cute, there'd be no way to deny that Henry Mills was becoming pure evil.

"Okay." Rosie rolled her eyes, reaching for her apron and tying it around her waist again. Henry smiled, delighted that he'd gotten his way, but Emma threw a gaze over her shoulder, a bold apology written all across her face.

"That wasn't very nice, Henry." Emma sighed, following the kid out of the diner. "You know, I'm sure Rosie likes walking to school with you. She doesn't just walk you because Regina asks." Henry sighed at the mention of Regina, his shoulders dropping just slightly. Emma wasn't blind to it. "What's the deal with you and her?"

"It's not about us, it's about her curse. We have to break it. Luckily, I have a plan. Step One, Identification. I call it Operation Cobra." He brightened significantly, like this was what he'd been waiting for Emma to ask him. The blonde only let him babble, deciding not to fight it.

"Cobra? That has nothing to do with fairytales." Emma glanced both ways before she guided Henry across the street, still swinging the deep red apple in her hand.

"Exactly." Henry babbled, his hands going a mile a minute as he enunciated his excitement. "It's a codename. To throw the Queen off the trail."

"So everyone here is a fairy tale character, they just don't know it?" Emma questioned, deciding that she wanted to get down to the very basics of this 'curse' to understand the more complex connections Henry had established. Also, just so that she understood a damn thing he was saying to her at the speed of light.

"That's the curse. Time's been frozen. Until you got here." Henry explained and Emma frowned.

"What about Rosie? I've seen pictures of her as a kid." Emma noted, remembering that first night she'd spent in Storybrooke. When Rosie had gone inside to comfort Henry, Regina had guided Emma into a room right off of the entryway, where a picture of Henry and Rosie from at least three years ago was displayed on the mantle.

"Rosie's different. She's breaking the curse by herself... I think. Before I came to Storybrooke, time didn't move for anyone. But then it started moving for Rosie." Henry shrugged, evidently having not thought much about it, or perhaps he had, but it was just another instance where he didn't deem Emma ready for the information.

Either way, Emma was confused. She could follow his logic somewhat when time hadn't moved at all before she got there, the bell tower she supposed was somewhat proof enough, but Rosie having the ability to age and feel time all on her own, and somehow not realizing that nobody else was aging with her... well, Emma wasn't so sure that was quite as plausible. She made a move to take a bite of the apple, for what felt like the seventh time that morning, but before she could even part her lips to take a bite Henry was shrieking at her side.

"Hey! Where's you get that?" He questioned, eyebrows raised in concern.

"Your Mom." She frowned, looking down at the apple that looked infuriatingly perfect. Regina grew some damn good apples. Or, Emma assumed. Every time she's tried to eat one, something's gotten in her way.

"Don't eat that!" Henry plucked the fruit from her hands, throwing it behind his head dramatically. If Emma hadn't been so stunned, she might've scolded him for that.

"Okay. Uh, alright." She blinked, trying to just move on and get back to the original topic. "What about their pasts?"

"They don't know. It's a haze to them. Ask anyone and you'll see." Emma could see where he was coming from, though only partly. It was peculiar how Rosie couldn't recall anything about her parents, especially when abandoned kids usually cling to the last memory they have, desperately trying to put the pieces together until they're well into their adulthood.

"So, for decades people have been walking around in a haze, not aging, with screwed-up memories, stuck in a cursed town that kept them oblivious?" Emma tried to compile all the information she and Henry had just dissected, filing it away in her brain for later.

"I knew you'd get it." Henry grinned, "That's why we need you. You're the only one who can stop her curse."

"Because I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?" Emma questioned, a smile on her lips though she thinks it's entirely derived of uncertain amusement.

"Yes. And right now we have the advantage." Henry stopped on the sidewalk, facing Emma. "It's why Rosie couldn't come. She can't know this, and neither can my Mom. I took out the beginning of her story and the end of yours." Henry explained, still not an ounce of guilt on his face for practically ditching Rosie. He fished through his backpack for the pages he referenced, the very first one in the pile depicting what Emma assumed was a prince and a baby wrapped in a green blanket with a four letter name stitched onto it. "See? Your mom is Snow White."

"Kid." Emma's voice wavered, her eyes almost memorizing the blanket as they swept across the page and then up to Henry's face.

"I know the hero never believes at first. If they did, it wouldn't be a very good story. If you need proof, take them. Read them. But whatever you do, don't let her see these pages. Rosie or my Mom. These pages are dangerous, if she finds out who you are, that would be bad."

"Rosie already knows who I am." Emma frowned, looking down at Henry as she flickered through the pages in her hands.

"But she doesn't know who she is, not really. I told her she was raised by a fairy in the woods. But... there's more. It's how she's breaking the curse by herself." Henry said, his eyes gleaming. Emma rolled the pages up in her fists, not wanting the wind to carry them away.

"Why haven't you told her?" Emma couldn't make sense of it. Henry told Rosie everything, and it very well seemed like the teenager was the only kind of 'authority' figure he respected, though even then he wasn't the best listener. There was no viable reason that Emma could construct that explained why he wouldn't tell her about her own story. "Is she a villain?"

"No!" Henry gasped, his eyes wide, hardly able to believe that Emma could ever make that conclusion. "I think she's the real hero of the story. You break the curse, you're the savior. But I think Rosie's the hero."

"And you haven't told her because...?" Emma trailed off, the question still left unanswered, danced around by the ten-year-old.

"Because Rosie doesn't think about her parents now. The curse... she doesn't remember them, and for some reason, it's like she can't remember that she's supposed to miss them, like... like the fairy who raised her put a spell on her but it's not in the book. The fairy never puts a spell on Rosie, she spells the whole cottage because she thinks that it'll hold up in the curse but it doesn't. If I show Rosie the pages, if I tell her who her parents are... I don't want her to be sad. She's not ready. Not until she starts remembering for herself." Henry shook his head, and Emma felt her heart clench at his kindness. This was all crazy, insane even, but even in the crazy it was a testament to Henry's heart. He may not listen, he may be cheeky and sneaky, but he cares so much that it almost makes everything else forgivable. "I gotta go!" His ears perk up as chatter from the drop off line gets louder, their steps leading them closer and closer to the school. "But I'll find you later and we can get started. I knew you'd believe me!"

"I never said I did." Emma called back, but Henry was already weaving through students and teachers, racing toward the stairs as his backpack bounced on his back.

Emma scoffed shaking her head as she watched him go, "Why else would you be here!" He eventually hollered back, and Emma deflated, having nothing else to argue.

"It's good to see his smile back." Mary Margaret approached, her eyes wide with joy at the sight of Henry so spritely and back to normal.

"I didn't do anything." Emma shook her head, unable to take any credit for his sudden shift in energy.

"You stayed." Mary Margaret argued, to which the blonde was once again deemed speechless. "So, does the Mayor know you're still here?"

"Oh, she's knows. What is her deal? She is not a great people person. How did she get elected?" Emma asked, her eyebrows raised in scrutiny.

"She's been Mayor as long as I can remember." Mary Margaret shook her head, but Emma reeled back, remembering her earlier conversation with Henry. The amount of times someone answered her so vaguely was beginning to rack up to a hardly ignorable total. "No one's ever been brave enough to run against her. She inspires quite a bit of, well, fear. I'm afraid I only made that worse by giving Henry that book. Now he thinks she's the Evil Queen." Mary Margaret leaned forward somewhat dramatically, and under any other pretense Emma would've laughed at the length of her subtle dramatics, but the weight of Henry's accusations was just unsettling at this point.

"Who does he think you are?" Emma advanced shamelessly, but hoping she had come off as least the slightly bit uninterested; like it was just a casual back and forth about this kids imagination. Mary Margaret was a teacher, surely she appreciated this kind of conversation.

Mary Margaret scoffed, looking down at her hands. "It's silly." She denied.

"I just got five minutes of silly. Lay it on me." Emma insisted, her hands shoved into her pockets. She could see Rosie approaching in the distance, her apron tied around the straps of her backpack that looked like it had been mauled by a bear; Emma wouldn't be surprised if that was the actual cause of the marks.

"Snow White." Mary Margaret looked almost pleased with the classification, not that Emma noticed, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her and simultaneously like she was invading Mary Margaret's privacy by just looking at her. It felt silly. To hold onto the hope that this washer mother, but after twenty-eight years of dead ends, silly was pretty much the entire chase. "Who does he think you are?"

"I'm not in the book." Emma shook her head, glancing off to the side as she caught eyes with Rosie. The teenager waved from her from the steps, and she felt inclined to wave back, prompting Mary Margaret to look back as well. She didn't say anything, but Emma could see the same appreciation in her eyes that had been there with Henry. "Can I ask you a favor? Regina mentioned the kid's in therapy. Do you know where I could find the doctor?"

— 🕊️—

enchanted forest
(twenty-eight years ago)

Rosie wept as cobblestones clattered to the ground. The beautiful stones so tediously overgrown with tended to moss had once held up their beautiful cottage, but as the curse swept across the kingdom — dark purple and black as it twisted through the sky —, destruction destroyed nearly everything it could reach out to touch. Another crash of falling stone sent the child scrambling back into the chest of her protector, her face bloodied and dusted with dirt.

"Stay here, Rose." The woman, though only a woman for the moment, whispered strongly. In an instant, her strong arms became a memory, replaced by the flutter of glittering wings that didn't feel as strong at they usually did when there was a curse breaking through the windows.

"No! Where are you going!" Rosie cried, a mess of wet snot and burning tears that just wouldn't stop falling. She was brave, the very bravest girl in the kingdom said her mother herself, but she couldn't stop crying. "Etta, where are you going!"

"Someone must protect the others, child. This cottage, it will survive the curse. When the storm is clear, all you must do is find me, Rose Petal." The fairy with fluorescent red hair that was almost magenta whenever she used too much magic promised. She made it sound so easy, just like she made everything sound so easy. She'd once taught Rosie to climb a tree in only seven minutes, but finding a fairy after a curse was different. So much different.

"It will not be so easy. The branches are big, Etta! Do you remember they blocked the whole wide road!" Rosie whimpered, backing farther into the corner when shattering cobblestone fell around Etta, dust floating around her wings that swept it up in the swirling breeze.

"I do, sweet child. We had so much fun climbing them together, didn't we, but I don't suspect you needed me. Not truly." Etta grinned, her eyes brimming with tears as she looked down at the sweet girl that she had raised since birth. "When the time comes that you find safety, you must promise that you will find me."

"But what if I cannot, Etta?" She wept, unable to escape this reality no matter how much she tried to convince Etta to stay it seemed.

"Then you must find Emma. You will find one of us, Rosie. That much I am certain of."

Rosie sniffled, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her nightgown. "How can you be certain?"

"One day you will understand. Let's just call it intuition for now."

— 🕊️ —

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Rosie huffed, tying her hair up into a bun as she left Granny's behind her for the night. She could've headed straight for her tent, decided to call it an early night and tossed and turned for a couple of hours until she fell asleep, its usually what she did on the nights where Regina had plans for Henry and herself, but then she remembered Mr. Gold's proposition to pop in sometime today, and her feet carried her in the opposite direction instinctually.

Mr. Gold's wasn't a far walk from Granny's, but the sun was beginning to set earlier and earlier, and already Rosie longed for the days when she wouldn't be rushed by approaching darkness after every footstep. In the summertime, the sun stretched on for hours, but the crowds didn't, so she got to leave before golden light was tucked beneath any kind of barrier. Rosie wished she'd taken advantage of those little luxuries a little bit more, though simultaneously not so sure when she'd become so passionate about the little things in life like sunsets and seasons.

The three bells tied overtop of the door jingled when Rosie stepped inside, and almost shyly the teenager ducked her ears to her shoulders and became flush in the cheeks — making her look rather deserving of her name.

"Ah, Ms. Finch, you made it." Mr. Gold hummed, satisfied with Rosie's presence as he crept out of the back room, a pleased smile on his lips that for once didn't look like it was intended to be intimidating. "Come in, dearie. I've set aside some things I suspect you might like."

"I don't have much money, Mr. Gold." Rosie forewarned the older man, following him into the back of the store dutifully. "I do have enough for that sword though, are you really sure I can't have it?"

Mr. Gold could only shake his head at her persistence, something that he recalled getting a sense of when he'd first become aware of her existence. "If it remains in my possession by the time you're eighteen years old, I'll consider it a personal birthday present, Ms. Finch, but until that day comes, the answer will always be no."

Rosie sighed, taking one last longing glance at the sword before she turned her attention toward the few scattered belongings on a stool. "Where did you find all of these?"

"Oh, they've been around for years, hidden away in some boxes that I've forgotten about here or there." Mr. Gold brushed off her questioning, and Rosie was in no position to question that. Somehow, it just made sense that an entire pawn shop of items kept its doors open in a town where nobody went anywhere different. If Rosie really thought about it, she'd consider that there was no store in Storybrooke that crafted swords or armor at all, but it was just one of those things that melted into the background.

Rosie let her eyes scan the pile of artifacts, waiting to see if anything pulled her attention specifically. Sometimes things called for her immediately, like the time Mr. Gold had shown her to the red ribbons she always tied into her hair, but sometimes it took awhile. Rosie couldn't understand why. "That's beautiful." She whispered suddenly, her hand reaching out for a crocheted doll. She wore a pink dress but no shoes, had blue eyes and brown hair. She looked familiar. Like somebody Rosie knew.

"Indeed. I've had this one for years. She sat in the window for a while, until I moved her out to clean up some space." Mr. Gold informed, seemingly pleased with Rosie's interest, like he knew these items would have some kind of pull on her. Maybe he did. He had watched her grow from the widow of his shop throughout the years after all.

"How much is she?" Rosie questioned, subconsciously bringing her hand over the dolls crocheted hair. It had been years since she'd had a doll, or maybe it was the first time, but there was something about it that felt right. The body of the doll was soft, like it had been squeezed by the hand of a child tightly, but that only made it better.

"Oh, well. I suppose we could just make a deal, couldn't we?"

Rosie frowned, "A deal? But I have nothing that you want."

"Oh, but of course you do. You have freedom, Ms. Finch. You're young, you don't know what it all entails just yet, but when you do, you keep your options open. Can you do that?" Mr. Gold, ever the ominous conversationalist, was practically leading Rosie blind, and her face reflected as much.

"You want to make a deal that... when I understand what it entails to be free, that I'll, what, actually act with free will?" The teenager questioned, feeling like she was taking some kind of standardized test from her English teacher.

"Precisely, Ms. Finch." Mr. Gold nodded.

"Deal." She assured, still not entirely sure whether she understood his question, but willing to take a bet and say that the end result wouldn't be so bad whenever she was faced with it.

"Well then, I'll see you around, Ms. Finch. Tell Emma I said, hello."

"Do you like her Mr. Gold?" Rosie looked at the man with her head tilted in contemplation. It was an expression that Gold had seen in both this land and another, and he could only shake his head in fondness.

"What's it to you if I do, dearie?" He played, fiddled with her words and her intentions because he knew that he could. He knew that with enough jiggling of words, Rosie wouldn't know which way was up or which way was left. That was the curse, and it had been the curse for the last twenty-eight years.

"I don't know." Rosie frowned, "I guess it was something Henry said, about the 'curse'." It was as if a haze had come upon Rosie suddenly, that concentrated look in her eyes twisting into blankness that had lived in blue eyes for nearly three decades. Mr. Gold nodded his head, his eyes flickering down to his watch as he made note of the seconds that it took. "Nevermind, thank you, Mr. Gold. I know we made that deal, but I don't have to babysit Henry on Friday, I could come by after my shift at Granny's and lock up for you. Maybe go through some more boxes and put them out?"

"You're not trying to swindle me, are you, dearie?" Mr. Gold questioned, but he knew that was far from the root of this suggestion. He knew who this girl was, every version of her, and it was about time he started placing his cards in her hands. He could feel the curse weakening around her, there was a pulse of clarity around her that the others didn't have, but it came as no surprise. None of this did.

"N-No!" Rosie spluttered, her eyes widening impossibly at the suggestion. She hadn't registered the lifted tone, or the way Mr. Gold drummed his fingers along the glass showcase filled with trinkets and crowns. Even if she had realized he'd done all those subtle things, Rosie would've never known this was basically the equivalent of a friendly joke to the crocodile. "No, but this will be the second deal we've made now Mr. Gold, and I have no way to honor either of them yet. Can I do this for now?"

"No." Mr. Gold decided, shaking his head. Rosie paled, swallowing thickly. She mustered up a smile regardless, even if her fingers tightly digging into the soft fabric of the doll gave away her emotion. "But, I am looking to hire. What do you say, Ms. Finch? Do Friday nights at the shop sound appealing to you?"

"Oh, but Mr. Gold, I couldn't. My tent, the bows, this doll...they've all been more than enough!" Rosie worried so honestly that it almost felt cruel to toy with her like this, to build up the situation to something almost detrimental when it wasn't that at all, but in that worry was a girl that Mr. Gold had never met — nor had Rumplestiltskin.

"You'll find that with the right motivation, a person can always change, Ms. Finch. We'll call it a lesson for later, how about that. Anyone can change, so long as they have the right allies." Rosie was almost certain that Mr. Gold was slowly losing his mind, resorting to riddles because it was all a jumble in his head regardless, but she nodded anyways, because maybe one day she'd understand what kind of code he was talking in. "Splendid. I'll see you on Friday, Ms. Finch."

Rosie glanced outside, unsure of when it had gotten so dark, before she looked toward the pawn shop owner. "See you Friday, Mr. Gold. Thank you for the doll."

Rosie bowed out of Mr. Gold's shop, stumbling out onto the main street of Storybrooke where headlights gleamed brightly against the street. The town had been busier, definitely at some point, but only the odd neighbor stumbled down the street at this hour — either coming from the only bar in town or shuffling out of Granny's with a full belly. Rosie's stomach growled at the reminder that she'd forgotten all about getting food after school, but she didn't want to stop into Granny's and get roped into another hour of work, and everything else had long since closed its doors with the sunset. So doing anything about her hunger would definitely have to wait.

"Kid!" Rosie's head snapped around, trying to find the voice that had cut through the silence of town. She beamed brightly when she found Emma at the corner, seemingly coming out of Archie Hopper's office. "Where the hell have you been all day?"

"Working. I think I have a job at Mr. Gold's now." Rosie frowned, still unsure of what that had happened, but not all that mad about it. It gave her somewhere else to be where it was warm. "Why? What happened?"

Emma dragged her palm down her face, heaving over her breath as if unable to even believe the line up of events that had consumed her day. "What didn't happen. Regina had me arrested, Mary Margaret bailed me out, she set me up with Henry, and I just came from Archie's office where I basically just lied my ass off to save whatever remains of Operation Cobra."

"What's Operation Cobra?" Rosie frowned.

"That's all you took away from this?" Emma gave her a deadpanned glare, and the teenager flailed her limbs.

"Well, I know what everything else means. I don't know what Operation Cobra is." She attempted to defend herself, but it came out high pitched and weak. Emma only laughed, shaking her head because yeah, this makes sense. The biggest problem in this town is a fake curse that just keeps becoming realer and realer.

"Henry's new name for the Curse. I wasn't supposed to tell you, so don't mention it to him." Rosie smirks slightly at that, nodding her head in understanding. "You heading home?"

"Yeah. Got another busy day tomorrow." Rosie shrugged, kicking at the pebbles in the road.

"You know, that extra seats still open right?" Emma wanted to make sure that Rosie knew her offer was genuine, but even with the repeated reassurance, the teenager still declined the offer.

"I can't." Rosie assured, but then she squinted her eyes, almost panicked by the premise of having a choice over where she slept. "I can't. I have to get back to my tent, bye Emma."

"Bye, Rosie?" The blonde called after the teenager, desperately itching to read at least a handful of the pages Henry had given her. There was still no desire in her to read through her own pages, but for whatever reason, she felt a pull that she couldn't explain toward Rosie — or more specifically, her story.

Opening the door to her yellow beetle, Emma sighed in exhaustion. She slipped into the drivers seat, reached into her bag on the passages seat, and filled through three pages until the pictures didn't look to depict a castle. She didn't want to even see her story, so avoiding anything royal was just what she would have to do for the time being. Even thinking about royal blood coursing through her veins was enough to send a tingle up her spine.

"Who the hell are you, Rosie?" Emma mumbled beneath her breath, her words scanning the pages intently.

— 🕊️ —

enchanted forest
(twenty-eight years ago)

"No!" The child cried, banging her fists against the wooden door to the cottage. Cobblestones fell all around her, shattering at her feet as she caved in from the roof that Etta had spelled red months ago. Once upon a time, it had been comforting enough to lull Rosie to sleep in minutes, but as blood dripped down her forehead, a deep cut stinging within her tousled hairline, she couldn't quite stomach the sight of the color.

"It's for your protection, child! Be strong, Rose Petal!" The voice was warped as it came through the door, the rusted hinged glowing pink at the surface tension of magic being so forcibly pushed against. It almost burned Rosie's hands as she wrapped at the door, but she couldn't even process the sensation enough to realize it.

"No! No, Etta! Etta, don't leave me! Please! Please, I'm scared! I'm not brave! I am not brave, Etta!" She pleaded, over and over again, but it was useless. Etta knew she was brave, she'd known it for a while, no amount of hollering or dishonesty would bring her back. Her job was to protect Rosie, to raise her and guide her and let no harm come upon her, that role had been fulfilled. As long as the spell kept the cottage safe, Etta could help as many people as she needed to out there. But, if she was going to be out there, Rosie wanted to be there too. Then, she wouldn't have to find Etta (or Emma) all alone later, because they'd already be together.

The shattering of cobblestones quieted down, but the dark purple and green skies were glaringly obvious through the windows. The trees rustled with the force of the wind, branches snapping and bending and falling down to the ground. It might've been a flower being ripped from the ground, or it might've been Etta being hurled through the breeze. Rosie didn't know, but a streak of red flew past the window and she hated to think that it was her fairy being hurt.

"I'm brave." The child whispered, hugging her knees to her chest as she crumbled to the ground, her eyes watching the window. That streak of red came back again, this time with a trail of shimmering dust behind it. Rosie grinned through her tears, watching Etta until she couldn't as the fairy disappeared into the village. "I'm brave. I'm brave." Rosie couldn't stop saying it. If she stopped, she might've called for Etta again, or she might've just started crying. It seemed the only way to believe the words were to say them, so she did just that, trying not to focus on the screams of her fellow villagers becoming quieter and quieter.

She shrieked when something thumped against the cottage from the outside, seeing another streak of red, but this time it was entangled with purple. Rosie whined when she realized what was happening. That Etta had tried to use the last of her power to pull the curse overhead into her body — her tiny body that fit in Rosie's palm whenever the fairy let her feel her wings.

"No!" Rosie screeched, her hands planting themselves on the floor in horror as she braced herself instinctively. The floorboards were illuminated in a glittering gold hue seconds later, Rosie's eyes flickering until all that was visible around her pupils were specs of incandescent gold. Her hands became white light, bright and warm, siphoning the energy from the cottage as her eyes kept perfectly aligned with the face of her dying guardian. "Rosetta!" Rosie screeched when the fairy disappeared into red dust, practically proofing out of existence just before Rosie's entire body began to glow, the cottage engulfing with light just as the curse swept across the final inch of the kingdom.

— 🕊️—

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Emma clutched the page tight between her fist, her eyes pinched together desperately and her chest heaving wildly for breath. "She absorbed the spell." She realized, an ache of pain spreading through her. If Henry was right, if — for only five minutes — she let herself believe this reality entirely, then not only did Rosie absorb the protection spell that had sealed the cottage... but did she also seal herself to that as well. Red tent. Cottage with a red roof, that just so happened to have acquired many holes. Emma felt sick at the thought. For twenty-eight years, had Rosie never once slept inside? Even she had escaped the weather most nights.

'It's like she can't remember that she's supposed to miss them.' Emma jolts at the memory of earlier that morning, Henry's solemn expression pointed toward the ground as he explained his apprehension to tell Rosie of her lineage. Emma hadn't seen those pages, either having not read far enough to find them in the pile she held, or having accidentally bypassed them in a haste to avoid her own tale, but regardless, she couldn't help but wonder... if it was true — all of it —, if Rosie absorbed the protection spell in the Enchanted Forest, if she acted like she 'forgot to miss her parents', could it be related. Could that spell be doing more than just pumping magic through her veins thats potentially breaking the curse... could it be... lightening the curse all together? Keeping the bad dreams away? Blocking out the hurt and pain of being abandoned and alone? Making light of the cold and the rocks beneath her head? Emma hoped so, at least to a certain degree.

Her five minutes had quickly become ten, and despite herself, she decided against heading back to Boston at all. Tomorrow she'd start house hunting, but for right now, she'd sleep, because she must be delirious if she's actually considering Henry's delusions as reality.

Chapter Text

snow falls — chapter three
(season one, episode three)

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Emma Swan held a flashlight between her fingers, pointing the golden beam down toward a newspaper that was intentionally held open to the local listings page. The heat was on full blast, the car running beneath her body that had been stationed here for the last hour at the latest. It was almost ten o'clock, the streets of Storybrooke long cleared out, but it seemed a few people still remained out and about.

"Hey." Mary Margaret leaned in close to the window, pulling her pink cardigan tighter around her torso as a breeze rolled down the street. Emma jolted at the sudden presence, her eyes sweeping toward the window in alarm before she deflated. "You okay?"

"Oh, in the world of tight spots I've been in, crashing in my car doesn't even rank in the top ten." Emma shrugged, letting the newspaper fall into her lap as she turned her attention to Mary Margaret. She was reluctant to say that she'd found a friend in the younger (potentially older) woman, but she'd definitely admit to not hating her company.

"You're sleeping here?" Mary Margaret gasped in horror, and for a brief moment, it pissed Emma off how everyone in this town was somehow just okay with Rosie sleeping in a tent through all conditions. But then she remembered the curse, and subconsciously she didn't feel so hostile.

"Till I find a place." Emma shrugged, genuinely unbothered with the sleeping arrangements, though preferring if she were in a bed that she could afford. This was nothing, not really, but she'd come a long way from crashing in the car and a part of this felt something like a step back from all the progress she'd made bettering herself.

"You decided to stay." Mary Margaret smiled, realizing that Emma was indeed going to be sticking around indefinitely. "For Henry." She sighed, pleased with the commitment and affection the boy was now getting from someone who didn't make him feel so small; and who wasn't still a kid herself.

Emma craned her body slightly to the left, letting Mary Margaret see the bundle of blankets and brown hair that was passed out in her passenger seat. She didn't know how it happened, not at all if she was being honest, all she knew was that she'd hung out with Henry and Rosie after school, the teenager had gone to work and Henry had gone home (neither one of them seeming out of the ordinary), and then she'd stumbled into Rosie in the streets hours later and the teenager didn't turn down her offer to at least get in the car. Then she'd fallen asleep. It was a simple concept, Emma technically did know how it happened, but she couldn't figure out what changed. She did note however, that Rosie mentioned not sleeping great the night before when Henry asked.

"Ella Rose." Mary Margaret gasped, her eyes wide and Emma could only take that to mean the school teacher thought she'd taken Rosie under her wing, maybe she had, maybe this was exactly what that was. Emma wouldn't allow herself to name the circumstance though. She'd learned a long time ago that naming anything before it named itself only got her hurt or in a jail cell, so for now, it was just the first night Rosie Finch accidentally fell asleep in her yellow bug.

"Yeah, I guess." Emma sighed, not wanting to get into the nitty gritty of her emotions with a woman that she hadn't known five minutes. Conversations about Henry, and Regina, and Storybrooke, Emma could do that for right now. She motioned for the door, wanting to step away from Rosie before the conversation woke her up. "This town doesn't seem to have many vacancies. None, actually. Is that normal?"

"Must be the curse." Mary Margaret mused, stepping away from the door and allowing Emma to come out of the car, the blonde thankful to be stretching her legs. She could sleep in the car, but she definitely wasn't as young as she used to be.

"Why are you out so late?" Emma questioned, leaning up against the beetle. It wasn't much farther than being inside the car, but she hoped it was good enough for Rosie to get a few more minutes. Emma highly doubts she'll last the night, if even another full hour. Even now she doesn't have the best relationship with sleep, she doesn't expect for Rosie to have any.

"Well, I'm a teacher, not a nun. I had a date." Mary Margaret rocked on her heels, her arms still laced overtop of her chest as she swayed with the wind. Storybrooke had seen cooler nights, it was almost pleasant outside without a jacket, but it was still no comparison to the warmth of summer.

"From the looks of things, it went well." There was sarcasm clear as day in Emma's tone, and Mary Margaret rolled her eyes.

"As well as they ever do." She scoffed, looking off to the side, unable to resist taking another glance at Rosie.

Emma scoffed, her head lulling to the side. "Tell me he at least paid."

"Well, mm-mm." Mary Margaret tried to fight a smile, but watching Emma groan was the height of comedy she'd gotten around here in... well she couldn't quite rememeber. "I guess if true love was easy, we'd all have it. You know, if things get cramped, I do have a spare room, and if you can convince Ella Rose to join you, well the more the merrier."

Emma flinched, surprised by Mary Margarets generosity. "Thanks. I'm not really the roommate type. It's just not my thing. I do better on my own." It was almost as if Mary Margaret knew that wasn't true in the slightest, her eyes flickering to Rosie who was beginning to stir awake in the passenger seat, but was very obviously trying to mask her consciousness.

Mary Margaret kicked her foot out slightly, tilting her toe toward the car when Emma curiously glanced down at the shift in stance. The blonde needed no further clues, and a smirk settled onto her lips as she nodded, taking the hint. "Well, goodnight. Good luck with Henry."

Emma watched Mary Margaret walk away before she glanced back into the car, tapping the steering wheel with her fingers. "I know you're awake, kid."

Rosie peaked her head out of all the blankets, a sheepish expression dancing across her lips as she revealed her flush cheeks. "What did Ms. Blanchard want?" The teenager asked, throwing the blankets off of her body, suddenly aware of how hot she felt beneath their weight. She clambered out of the car, rounding the corner until she could stand beside Emma, her shoes still on the floor of the yellow bug, unneeded as the breeze cooled the asphalt.

"She had a date." Emma grimaced, but Rosie gasped, suddenly wide eyed as she leaned closer, seeking more information.

"Really?" The teenager questioned, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. Nobody ever had any dates around here. Not herself, not Ruby, and definitely not Mary Margaret Blanchard. It just didn't happened. Either you moved to Storybrooke married, or you died in Storybrooke alone. Friends were made, enemies established, but nobody ever dated. "How did it go?"

"About as well as a date with a man can go, Rosie." Emma shook her head, "He was definitely checking another girl out — probably Ruby, and he didn't pay. Have you ever been on a date, kid?"

"No." Rosie shook her head, hardly phased by the line of questioning. Henry would've run a million miles away. The last time Regina had asked him about a crush he refused to talk to her for hours and locked himself in his bedroom, Rosie would put money on the fact that his embarrassment has only gotten worse. Though she finds it entirely ironic that he goes around telling other people about true loves kiss and their tragic romantic pasts.

"You don't pay on a date, you got that?" Emma held out a finger, pointing it at Rosie's chest. The teenager laughed softly, pushing the digit away from her.

"You're weird." She exclaimed before her eyes darted to the bell tower, the time now nearing midnight. "I should probably get home."

"You could always stick around. I mean, you're already here, the cars already warm, you'd only be doing yourself a disservice if you went home to a cold tent now when I've treated you so nice." Emma knew what she was doing wasn't fair, that if what Henry believed was true, she was essentially asking Rosie to battle with a magic force strong enough to displace an entire kingdom in a new realm, even if it wasn't true, this still wasn't fair, but somebody needed to push Rosie.

"I've never... I've never not gone back home." Rosie said it like she couldn't believe the statement, like it made no sense to her why she hadn't just stayed with somebody else for a night. She'd endured snowstorms and downpours and heatwaves... but why? "Uh, yeah. Okay. If you're sure."

"I'm sure." Emma nodded toward the car. "Climb in, I spent a couple months by the shore. There's definitely a good camp out spot by the docks."

— 🕊️—

Rosie climbed up the castle behind Henry, glancing behind her to make sure that Emma followed. Rosie's class hadn't gotten to visit the hospital, but she'd heard all about it from Henry already, she supposed it was Emma's turn now to hear about her father.

"I found your father." Henry began, opening the storybook up once he was settled on the ledge of the wooden playground. Rosie had been the one to teach him how to sit like that, so it was no surprise when she climbed up onto the highest point of the castle and made herself into a little ball.

"Henry..." Emma began, sitting next to him on the ledge as he looked down at the page in his book.

"He's in the hospital in a coma. See this scar? He has one too." The logic was simple, childish, a reminder that at the root of this entire thing, Henry was just a child. A little boy.

"So? Lots of people have scars."

"In the same place. Don't you see what this means? The curse is keeping them apart with the coma. Now they're stuck without each other. We have to tell Ms. Blanchard we found her Prince Charming." Henry babbled, and Rosie sighed, leaning her cheek against her knees as she looked down at him with conflicted fondness. Sometimes this curse nonsense just became too much.

"Okay, kid. Telling someone their soul mate is in a coma is probably not helpful. Not having a happy ending is painful enough, but giving someone unrealistic hope is far worse."

"But what if I'm right? We know who they are, now they have to know." Henry was so sure of himself, so sure of his plan, Rosie wished she could see things as simply as he did. She used to, not even that long ago, but now there were things on her mind that felt to big to be her own, and anytime she tried to dwell on them, they vanished into the back of her mind where nothing could pull them back from.

"How do we do that?" Emma tilted her head, trying to understand where he was coming from, what path he was seeing that she couldn't even imagine.

"By reminding him. We have to get her to read their story to John Doe. Then maybe he'll remember who he is."

Emma paused, Rosie expected her to tell him no again, to explain in another way why this wasn't a good idea, but instead, she leaned forward, her eyes squinted. "Okay."

"Okay?" Both kids parroted, Rosie swinging down from the highest point of the castle until she was on her feet, her eyes wide with shock.

"Okay, but we do this my way. Let me ask her." Henry nodded sprightly, and Rosie frowned, tilting her head in confusion, unable to see Emma's angle from where she stood on her own.

"Can I come?" The teenager asked, and Henry's eyes widened, his smile growing as he looked up at her.

"No, no. You have to get Henry home and keep the Queen off our trail. Right, Henry?" Emma was downright evil, Rosie would've told her that if Henry wasn't already nodding, pulling her away from the castle and back toward town square.

"Bye Emma!" He yelled, making the blonde laugh. Rosie could only huff and let the kid drag her along.

— 🕊️—

Emma never found Henry or Rosie later, both kids mysteriously missing from town. Henry's absence didn't surprise her, figuring Regina had him beneath lock and key, but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't slightly disappointed that Rosie never showed up at her bug.

It was probably for the better, because after Mary Margaret visited their John Doe in the hospital, she'd recounted to Emma how he squeezed her hand. Henry would've run too far too fast, and Rosie would've been dragged along. Emma would hate to find out how Regina treats Rosie whenever Henry flies of the rails, continently taking most of the blow ups herself anymore.

For once, Rosie wasn't wearing her apron as she sauntered into Granny's the next morning. That was the first thing Henry noticed when she stopped in front of the table he was sitting at.

"You don't have work?" He questioned, his head falling to the side as he tried to decide if he liked the sight of Rosie without her apron. It just felt right to see her in it when he came, he hadn't even considered that she could opt not to wear it. Rosie Finch was a rule follower, in every realm, this made no sense to Henry who thought he had her all figured out.

"I do." Rosie shrugged, looking back at the counter where Ruby had probably been for hours. Usually she would've already been here with her, but she didn't feel like it today, as simple as that.

"But..." Henry frowned, "You always wear your apron."

"And I decided not to today." Rosie shrugged, "Why does it bother you? You spent an hour last night complaining about how nothing changes in this town."

"Do you feel different?" Henry quizzed, unable to let this just be a simply answered question. Rosie wasn't going to get to work at all if he kept up the questions, but Ruby seemed to have everyone handled, and the teenager — for once — really didn't care that she was going to miss out on an entire three hours of pay. What did she need it for anyways? She couldn't sleep inside, so renting a room at the Inn was out of the question, she refused to eat at Granny's when she wasn't working, and when she was working, there was no time. She has a card that's linked to an account, connected to a plastic card that's sits in her tent untouched. She doesn't know why she's pushed herself so hard when she comes home to toss and turn at night anyways. "Did you break more of the curse?"

"I just didn't want to wear the apron, Henry." Rosie sighed, turning her attention toward Emma when she stumbled out of the bathroom in a blue silk top. "Is that Regina's?"

"You said nobody would know." Emma's head lulled to the side, her eyes mapping Henry's reaction. The kid only shrugged, sipping on a hot chocolate.

"I said she won't notice."

Rosie scoffed, "Yes she will. She noticed in three seconds flat when you crushed her apple."

Henry frowned, "I never crushed her apple."

"Yes you did. You tried to play soccer with it and it got crunched beneath Ms. Boones' tire." Rosie reminded the boy, but Henry adamantly shook his head.

"I hate soccer. Maybe you're remembering the Enchanted Forest!" His eyes brightened, and Rosie could've face palmed if she didn't want to protect his emotions. He was a sensitive kid, if she'd have told him to drop it, he probably wouldn't have spoken to her for the next hour. "You and Rosetta used to go down to the village for seeds! You thought it was cheating when she made the flowers grow with magic, so once a month you got more seeds to replace the ones that had died. And then the queen showed up, and Rosetta tried to get you home, but you bumped into a fruit cart, and all the apples fell in front of the horses!"

"Henry, I wasn't—"

"But you were, Rosie! The apples, the apron. You have to be remembering, breaking the curse. It just doesn't make sense why you still don't remember who you are."

"Maybe you got my story wrong then, Hen."

"I didn't!" The little boy explained, but Rosie shrugged, not all too bothered with Henry's insistence. "You'll remember one day."

"Maybe." She shrugged, looking back at the clock on the wall. She hadn't cared about her shift, had been perfectly okay with skipping it all together, but then a wave of something crashed over her and her eyes widened, her belly thick with uncomfortable guilt.

"You feel bad, don't you?" Henry quizzed, and Rosie didn't even waste a minute before nodding. "You are Eva Rose. I know you are."

"Eva Rose is a seven year old girl who was raised by a fairy in the woods, Henry. Yes, I'm homeless, but I'm not seven. I don't have magic powers, and I've never grown wings!"

"Well, technically Eva Rose doesn't have wings because she's not a fairy. So, you wouldn't have wings either. And you were seven! For eighteen years you were seven, but then I came here and you started growing up."

"So what, that makes me some kind of reverse Neverland?" Emma tilted her head, green eyes narrowed as she looked at the teenager. Admittedly, she didn't know Rosie well. She knew a single shade of the girl, but no other colors. Still, without a personal history or any kind of clue, Emma wasn't sure Rosie was okay.

Henry frowned, "No. It makes you the hero, Rosie. Emma's the savior, you're the hero, and my Mom's the villain."

"Right." Rosie nodded, her eyes flickering back to the kitchen. "I should go. There's still a couple minutes left of my shift."

"I'll see you after work?" Henry asked hopefully, but Rosie only shrugged, frowning sympathetically.

"I got that job at Mr. Gold's, remember? I'll see you tomorrow though!" Rosie promised before she walked away, her shoulders falling forward like she was being weighed down. The second she glanced at Ruby though, their shoulders brushing as Ella Rose reached for an empty mug, it was like a spark tried to go off within her. For a single second, Rosie straightened her posture, swept her fingers through her hair, but then it was gone and even she looked confused.

"She's acting weird." Henry mused, his eyebrows pulled together as he glanced at Rosie.

For once, Emma couldn't even try to pacify his wandering mind. "Yeah." She agreed, sliding into the booth.

Rosie glanced at them from the counter, a torn expression on her face. There were so many possibilities running through her mind that hadn't been there yesterday. Yesterday, she'd never thought about the debit card she had, or that she could technically rent a room at Granny's whenever she wanted. Yesterday, she'd never thought about how nothing would happen if she just didn't show up for work. Yesterday, she hadn't been scared of the forest — the place she'd always lived.

What was happening to her? And why was it happening now, when Henry thought everything was related to a curse, when Rosie couldn't not be okay without it meaning she was remembering her fairytale life. Ella Rose Finch adored Henry Mills, but she's awfully tired of always trying to fit into his narrative of her.

Rosie looked up in startled shock when it dawned on her that Mary Margaret had joined Emma and Henry at the table in the corner. She glanced at the clock on the wall, the black hands covered in a layer of dust telling her that there was ten minutes before her shift was supposed to end.

"Ruby?" Rosie asked, looking back at her friend with taut lips. "What day is it?" She asked quietly.

"Saturday." Ruby laughed, nudging her with a pointed elbow as she passed, carrying mugs of coffee for her three top in the corner.

Rosie's eyes widened, her hands beginning to tremble. She knows that she went to school with Henry yesterday, but it was Thursday. They met up with Emma on the playground, she walked Henry home and they'd built the rest of his Star Wars lego until Regina got home. Henry asked if Rosie could stay for dinner, Regina said no. Rosie knows she walked back to the square after that, she'd been hoping to find Emma, but everything after that is black. Like it didn't happen; like she didn't live it.

A sudden pain flashed through Rosie's head, her eyes watering as she dipped her attention to the floor.

'Lock up when you're done, dearie.' Mr. Gold's voice floated through her head, and in an instant Rosie patted at her pockets, pulling out a single gold key that hadn't been there before.

Maybe she hit her head last night, she tried to theorize a reason for her lack of memory. She could've turned onto her side and whacked her head on a rock that poked through her blanket pillow every night. Or, maybe a branch had fallen from a tree and hit her? Maybe she couldn't remember because she had a concussion, not because there was magic in her veins actively fighting a dark curse she wasn't aware of.

"Wait...wait...what?" Emma's voice pierced through the air, and curiously Rosie glanced toward them. They were standing now, Henry's body pointed toward the door like he was ready to bolt. He probably was. Mary Margaret looked just as desperate as he did, and Rosie could only assume that meant Emma's plan to get Mary Margaret to read to John Doe had been successful.

For the very first time, a twinge of something sour churned her belly. She'd never felt like she was missing out before, maybe because there hadn't really been anything to miss out on besides extreme heat or freezing cold temperatures, but seeing Henry so absorbed in a conversation that didn't have to do with the town library or coffee beans... Rosie felt petulant. She wanted to curl her fists and dig her heels into the ground until the tile floors cracked beneath the pressure of her anger. For nearly five years, there's not been a single day where Ella Rose Finch hasn't single handled fed half of the small town. The feeling was heavy and uncomfortable in her stomach, so much so that when Henry bolted out of the doors, Emma and Mary Margaret chasing after him, Rosie couldn't keep it in anymore. With prickling tears clouding her vision, the teenager rushed off to the bathroom, expelling whatever remained in her stomach from lunch with Henry on Thursday.

When she was done, feeling like every last ounce of energy had been pulled from her bones, she stumbled to her feet in a cold sweat. Her head hurt again, this time right behind her eyes, and that burning feeling of something so foreign still lingered. She opened the bathroom door, startled to find Granny right outside, her eyes sparkling softly beneath the frames of her glasses.

"Why don't you head home for the day, Ella Rose." Granny offered, already steering Rosie in the direction of the doors. The teenager didn't fight, instead she nodded her head tiredly and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, wishing she'd remembered Emma's hoodie when she'd stumbled out of the tent only an hour ago at this point.

She didn't want to go back there — to the red tent. She'd never been afraid of the woods before, in fact, she'd always found them rather peaceful, but lately she couldn't shake the feeling that she wasn't supposed to be out in them, like it wasn't safe. She'd stared at the sky through the hole in the lining for hours last night, convinced that within the grey clouds there were strokes of green and purple. Rosie didn't know what was happening to her, but it was terrifying.

She stumbled down the familiar path until she could see the stream, the rolling water only audible if you really listened. Her red tent was positioned between three uneven trees, but nothing would hide its bold color from sight. Rosie frowned when she noticed another hole in the tents lining, this time right above where she kept the baby blanket she'd always had but couldn't remember finding. The teenage sighed, tiredly clambering into the tent, not bothering to zip the door behind her. She moved her blanket pillow away from the hole, laying her head down on it heavily. Not even a minute later, Ella Rose Finch was sound asleep.

— 🕊️—

enchanted forest
(thirty years ago)

Eva Rose grinned as she weaved through bodies, eager to find her favorite flower stand in the village. Her laughter echoed through the street, the villagers familiar enough with the five-year-old to only smile at her happiness, continuing on their merry ways as she jumped up and down on her slippers.

"Come, Etta, come! I see the cart! It's just over there! Can't you see it, Etta?!" Eva Rose babbled excitedly, too impatient to remain still when she realized Rosetta had no intentions of quickening her pace toward the unmoving flower cart. The child huffed, rushing forward on her little legs until she collided with Rosetta, the fairy's human display a slim strawberry blonde not all that much taller than Eva Rose.

Rosetta smiled fondly, "I can see it, Petal, but what hurry are we in? Are you that excited to tidy your room when we return home?" The fairy teased, her blue eyes bright and glimmering as she held Rosie in place, trapping the squirmy child in a hug.

"No! We must go home and plant them, Etta! So that they have time to bloom before Mother and Father visit!"

Rosetta was only teasing. Even if she wanted Rosie to tidy her bedroom before they dirtied their hands outside, she was certain the child wouldn't've been able to remain still nor collected enough to get the task done. It was no bother, Rosetta quite enjoyed the days when Rosie didn't fight her on cleaning the cottage with a snap of her fingers. "Oh, but I hardly think an hour will make much difference, petal. Certainly you can tidy your room first."

"No!" The child droned, her head inclined backwards as she whined her resistance.

"Alright, alright." Rosetta laughed, combing her fingers through the child's hair before she let Rosie go. "Go get your seeds, petal."

Rosie grinned, already beginning to race away again when the whinny of a horse startled her. She flinched backwards, stumbling into a cart of apples just as the Queens horses came barreling down the dirt, their hooves kicking rocks at Rosie's dress before the carriage halted nearby. An apple crunched beneath the horses hoof, and Rosie grimaced, already crouching down to retrieve the battered fruit when black shoes came into her view.

"I'm sorry, your Majesty." Rosie apologized softly, her blue eyes glittering with tears as she reached for the mushed fruit. "I was coming to get seeds, so that I could plant flowers for my mother." The Queen inclined her head, her dark eyes sweeping across the villagers who all stood and gawked in the streets. Rosie was oblivious to their fear, the only emotion coursing through her being sadness. "I won't be able to get as many now. Mister Buckley wants three gem for them, and that's a whole lot."

"That is quite a lot, yes." Regina nodded, somewhat baffled by the child's continued indifference toward her menacing presence. "What foolish act led to this scene?"

Rosie sighed, her head pointed to the ground. She didn't realize Rosetta was rushing towards her, evidently panicked that she was talking to the Queen. "The horse scared me."

"The horse scared you, but not I?" Regina squinted, highly aware of the redheaded woman trying to push through the crowed of fear frozen villagers. It was almost comical, the child's mother having more fear than the child herself.

"You have given me no reason to be scared. Your horse was loud, so then I got scared." Rosie frowned, not understanding why the Queen expected her to be scared.

"Petal!" Rosie's head snapped back to glance at Rosetta, "I'm terribly sorry for her, your Majesty. What have I told you about running, petal?" She helped Rosie up, brushing the dirt off of her dress.

"But it wasn't cause I was running, right, your Majesty? It's cause the horse scared me!" Rosie looked back at Regina, and if Rosetta could've shaken her head in exasperation in that moment without it threatening her life, she most certainly would've.

"That's enough, petal. Ask the Queen if you may be excused and come apologize to Mister Buckley."

Regina was almost amused by the display in front of her, unable to even be mad at the child's lack of fear when the rest of the village was looking on as if one wrong breath would do the child in. Not today it wouldn't, but she couldn't say she'd spare the girls life if her recklessness impeded on her voyage again.

"May I be excused, your Majesty?"

Regina nodded, turned sharply on her heels, and with the flick of her wrist all the apple disappeared from the cart and the road.

— 🕊️ —

storybrooke, maine
(present)

When Rosie was roused to consciousness, the pounding in her head sufficiently worse then it had been when she initially fell asleep, what she was acutely aware of was the fact that bright lights flickered through the lining of her tent. The two holes in the red lining gave moonlight the perfect opportunity to illuminate the small dwelling, but the yellow beams projecting circles on her makeshift walls were definitely not a result of anything cosmic.

The teenager frowned, entirely unamused by the disruption to her slumber that was evidently doing her body well as the queasy ache in her stomach no longer rendered her physically ill, but the pounding in her head was unexplainable as ever as Rosie slipped out of the unzipped tent, assured that she was hearing voices and not just making up sounds in the wind. She'd never hated the forest, but as she shivers in the darkness, she hates it with a passion. She hates the open woods, how the breeze has nothing to catch on and torments her with its presence, she hates the silence of still land where bugs should be, but instead their eerily misplaced, she hates the squirrels that snap branches before the sun rises and she cant tell if its something she should fear or just another animal coming to bother her. She hates this life, and she doesn't know what changes.

"Where is he? Can you see him?" Rosie frowns, stalking closer toward the sound. It's a woman's voice, high pitched and soft, but it would be irrational to assume that Emma's plotting had led Mary Margaret into the Storybrooke woods, and so Rosie merely held her breath and hoped it wasn't another newcomer to town looking for fresh blood. She absolutely had to stop letting Henry read her teh villains stories before she left him at home. The violence is evidently getting to her.

"The trial dies at the water line." There's another voice, and as Rosie spins around, she realizes that not only are there two voices out here with her, but four people.

"Hey, that's Rosie's tent!" Henry's voice is the only one she can recognize right away, but then he starts rushing towards her with a flashlight in his hand, and she realizes that Emma, Mary Margaret, and Graham are with him. She frowns, entirely in the dark about this entire situation. "Rosie! You have to help us find John Doe. He ran away from the hospital. He's looking for Miss Blanchard!"

"Oh, my god! Oh, my god! Oh, my god!" Rosie's head snaps toward Mary Margaret, the school teacher staring off toward the edge of the stream. It's dark, but in the shadows is a hint of blue, and without any further evidence that the indisposed of body belongs to their apparent missing person, Mary Margaret rushes over and drops down onto her knees.

Rosie gasps at the sight of her pounding on his chest, her fist hardly making a sound upon impact but enough to cause the muscles in his ribcage to retract and tighten. She could puke watching it happen, and maybe Emma could sense that, because before she could see Mary Margaret put her lips on John Doe's and breathe into his lungs, Emma's hand covered her eyes and pulled her head back until it met a firm shoulder. "Don't look." She whispered, and Rosie didn't have to be told twice, fisting the fabric of Emma's shirt and holding onto it tight whilst Henry's arms looped around her waist.

It was practically a blur until the ambulance arrived, paramedics ushering John Doe up onto a stretcher and into the rig. Rosie watched from inside her tent, her eyes wide as they memorized how the stream looked beneath LED lights. Henry sat at her feet, his eyes pointed toward the rocks as he sighed.

"Are you okay, Rosie?" He asked, and the teenager didn't have it in her to lie anymore.

"I don't remember yesterday." She admitted, her shoulders slumping as she watched Emma talk to Graham as the ambulance prepared to drive away and take their John Doe back to the hospital. "I remember building legos with you on Thursday, but I don't remember anything after that up until this morning. I have the keys to Mr. Gold's shop, so I must've gone, but I don't... It's just gone."

"You know what I just realized? Your tent matches the cottage you and Rosetta lived in." Rosie sighed, but then she frowned, looking down at the tent beneath her thighs. The zipper was rusted, broken and barely in one full piece, but it laid on top of the red lining so starkly that Rosie could almost swear she saw something else in the black color — something gold, maybe even something green.

"I guess it does." Rosie nodded, remembering that in the book, the cottage had a red roof. It was an insignificant detail, but she remembers liking the random intricacies. "When you found Emma... how did it feel?" She questioned, realizing that she'd never asked about their first moments together. Henry hadn't given her much room to ask, filling any bout of silence with his own rambling and plotting.

"Good." Henry smiled, nodding his head. There was a spark in his eyes that hadn't been there before. "Why? Do you want to find your parents?"

"I don't know." Rosie admitted, fiddling with the fraying trim of the zipper. "It just... it feels wrong that I don't think about them more often. I feel like I should want to find them, or at least know what happened to them, but I just don't. Or I didn't, maybe I do now. It doesn't really matter, I guess. I'm almost eighteen. If they didn't want me as a baby they definitely aren't going to want me as an adult."

"Your parents wanted you, Rosie." Henry frowned.

"Did they?" Rosie looked down at her hands, wanting to hide the tears brimming in her eyes from Henry. "Even in the book there's no mention of them, Henry." Henry felt bad. He's known who Rosie's parents are for years, but he can't tell her. Especially not now when she's crying without even knowing the whole story.

"Y—"

"Henry, let's go!" Emma came jogging up to the tent, cutting off the conversation. Rosie didn't mind, instead she reached inside the tent, pulling her blanket into her lap and fiddling with the soft hem. Henry clambered to his feet, looking down at his babysitter and best friend. "Can Rosie come?"

"That's up to her, kid." Emma shrugged, indifferent to the idea of the teenager tagging along. "You up for it, Rosie?"

Rosie nodded, shoving her blanket back into the tent. She'd never figured out who it belonged to before she owned it. As far as she knew (after many days searching), no Evie had ever lived in Storybrooke, but that was definitely what the blanket said in pink letters.

"Yeah, I want to get away from... here." She shuddered, pulling the hoodie she'd taken from Emma out of the tent and slipping it over her head. She rushed to catch up with Emma afterwards, her gaze dropping to the forest floor when Emma draped an arm across her shoulders. Her cheeks burned with a sensitive blush, which Emma wasn't blind to. The blonde smirked, knowing that whether Rosie approved or not, she was growing on her.

"This where I can find you?" Emma asked quietly, ducking her head downwards until she was certain Henry couldn't hear their conversation, not that he was paying attention as he brushed his palm against overgrown shrubbery.

Rosie nodded her head quietly, "Yeah." Her acknowledgment was soft and hesitant, and the little girl inside of Emma could've recoiled at the familiarity of the expression — hating the only place you had to call home.

— 🕊️—

"We got it from here." Dr. Whale assured, wheeling John Doe into the patient room as Emma, Henry, Rosie, Mary Margaret, and Sherrif Graham idly stood outside the glass doors.

Emma had a hand on Henry's backpack and a hand on Rosie's hood, unintentionally keeping both kids within arms reach of her body. Henry didnt seem to notice, entirely absorbed in the sight of nurses and Dr. Whale treating their John Doe.

Rosie stepped backwards suddenly, her eyes widdening in horror as she recognized John Doe for who he was. It was hard not to as he laid on the hospital bed for Rosie to analyze. Before, she hadn't seen Henry's comparrisons to the storybook character. Maybe she hadn't wanted to see the similarities, or maybe they'd really been hidden from her, but now that they weren't plunged into darkness, there wss no denying the man on the bed was Prince James Charming.

"David!" Rosie flinched at the sudden presence of a panicked voice, Emma's grip tightening on the fabric of her hoodie. "David, is that you?"

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Dr. Whale glanced up as the blonde barged into the patient room. Rosie's side aches where the womans elbow had brushed into her inconsiderately.

"Oh, my god." The woman breathed out, her chest heaving as she stood frozen beside the hospital bed. Rosie had no idea who she was, certain she'd never seen her before.

"Ma'am, you can't be in here. Please, you can't be in here right now." Dr. Whale tried to remove her, but she only proceeded to rush forward, her hand stroking across John Doe's forehead. "Can you wait over here for a second?" Whale sighed, pulling her back from the bedside.

"Who is that?" Mary Margaret questioned.

"His wife." Regina's voice cut through the room, and Henry stepped closer to Rosie. The teenager draped an arm across his shoulder, gripping a handful of his jacket. "His name is David Nolan. And that's his wife, Kathryn. And the joy on her face? Well, it's put me in quite the forgiving mood." Regina's eyes swept across the people in front of her, her arms crossed over her chest.

Rosie sat next to Emma in the chairs, Henry across from both of them as he listened to Regina babble with a bored expression on his face. "We'll talk about your insubordination later. Do you know what insubordination means? It means you're grounded." Henry sank into the chair, his fingers curling around the armrest. "What are you doing here, Ms. Finch?"

Rosie frowned when she realized Regina's attention was settled firmly onto her, unsure of why her presence mattered at all. "They found Mr...Nolan, outside my tent in the stream." There was an unspoken element that Rosie couldn't admit. She couldn't admit that she was scared. Scared of remember what the sirens sounded like, of seeing flashes of Mary Margaret pounding on an unconscious man's chest as she tried to fall asleep.

"Thank you," Kathryn stepped out of the hospital room, "Thank you for finding my David."

Rosie turned to look at Emma when the blonde nudged her shoulder, "You okay, kid?"

"I don't wanna go back there." Rosie whispered, on the verge of tears as delicate emotions collected in her eyes and burned her nose. In a moment of unpredictable vulnerability, she dropped her head onto Emma's shoulder, allowing the adults body to hold her up as she wept silently. Emma cupped the back of her head, not uttering a single word.

Rosie only pulled away when she caught Kathryn's story being explained, frowning as she wiped at her cheeks and glanced at the blonde. "You didn't go looking for him?" Emma questioned, leaning forward.

"I assumed he left town all this time. Now I know why I never heard from him. Now I get to do what I've wanted to do forever. Say I'm sorry. Now we got a second chance." Kathryn explained, glancing down at the floor, unable to keep the smile off of her lips.

"That's wonderful." Mary Margaret breathed, sounding incredibly pained.

Rosie's eyes glanced to the left, watching Dr. Whale step out of the room with a deep breath. "Well, it's something of a miracle."

"He's okay?" Mary Margaret questioned, and Henry smiled at her persistence.

"Physically, he's on the mend. His memory is another issue. It may take time, if at all." Dr. Whale explained, but it all still made no sense to Rosie. She had no idea how he woke up to begin with.

"How did he wake up? After all this time?" The teenager questioned, hardly aware of how small she sounded as her voice trembled. Even Regina tensed, her eyes becoming softer as she looked at the dirty kid on the hospital chair. Rosie couldn't remember the last time she had a real shower, but she did know that she used the stream as a makeshift one two days ago. The dirt lathered beneath her nails and on her cheeks couldn't have been that bad yet.

"That's the thing, Ella Rose, there's no explaination. Something just clicked in him." Dr. Whale spoke slowly to the teenager, his eyes squinted almost curiously in her direction.

"He just got up and decided to go for a stroll?" Emma voiced her disbelief, her head shaking side to side.

"He woke up delirious. And his first instinct was to go find something, I guess." Rosie's fingers twitched hearing Dr. Whale's explanation.

"Someone." Henry butted in, though not too enthusiastically, Regina's presence dampening his energy.

"Can I see him?" Kathryn asked, causing a silence to fall upon the group in the hallway once Whale escorted her into David's room.

Rosie couldn't shake the feeling that she knew the guy, and that his name was James.

"Henry, let's go." Regina said after a moment, and i identify Henry stood from the chair he'd been parked in for the last handful of minutes.

He waved at Rosie, running to hug the teenager tightly around her waist before he followed Regina to the counter. He turned around suddenly after a moment, his eyes searching the waiting room.

"Wait. I forgot my backpack." He was already on his way to get it, Regina turning around impatiently to watch him grab it. "Don't believe them. You're the one he was looking for." Henry whispered to Mary Margaret. Regina couldn't hear, not all the way from the counter, but Rosie thought he was playing a dangerous game continuously antagonizing her to her face. For a kid convinced their mother is the literal Evil Queen and doesn't love them, Henry sure has a lot of trust in Regina not hurting him.

"Henry..." Mary Margaret frowned, her head lulling to the side as she looked down at the hopefully little boy.

"He was going to the Troll Bridge. It's like the end of the story." Henry has another fleeting thought, but Mary Margaret is quick to turn down his advice, or perhaps pestering.

"Henry, he was going there because it's the last thing I read to him." She smiled fondly, but Rosie couldn't help but feel like she was trying to convince herself that was the truth.

"No, it's because you belong together." A broken stare came over Mary Margaret's face, like a highlight reel of vacant memories was playing somewhere that she couldn't see in the back of her mind. Rosie knew the feeling well at this point.

"Henry." Regina called for her son and reluctantly Henry began to walk talk her, his feet dragging behind his body as he tried to avoid the inevitable.

"Stay here, kid. I'll be back." Emma's hand brushed across the center of Rosie's back, and the teenager looked over at her curiously.

"Where are you going?" Rosie questioned, wondering where the steel expression in Emma's eyes had come from.

"To talk to the Mayor." Emma clipped already on her feet, she threw her leather jacket down into Rosie's lap, not needing to wonder if the teenager was anything like she had been; she knew Rosie was, she could see the panic bubble behind her eyes the second anybody left her sight. Even if she never truly broke through with Henry, Emma thinks there's more than enough purpose sticking around here for Rosie. She wasn't done trying with both of them yet, though.

— 🕊️—

Hours later, Rosie stood with two backpacks over her shoulders. She'd always had one for school, and it was admittedly disgusting after at least ten years of use, but now she had another one; a nicer one filled with the handful of belongings she owned and the rusted silver zipper of her red tent. She couldn't go back there, it didn't feel like hers anymore, but she couldn't leave it behind her entirely either. The thought pulled at her heart.

Emma had taken her back to the yellow bug once she'd returned from her conversation with Regina, and they'd driven around for an hour before Emma had asked if she wanted to move into Mary Margaret's with her. It hadn't even been a decision. Rosie had said yes before Emma could finish, and twenty minutes later they were back by the stream, throwing everything that was in the tent into a backpack they'd found in the buggy's trunk.

Now, half an hour after that, Rosie and Emma stood in the hallway of Mary Margaret's building, both of their hearts beating rapidly in their chest. Emma's pocket felt empty, but Rosie's was full, and the promise that at any time she could escape from the apartment into the bug was the only thing giving her enough courage to stay beside Emma.

Emma was the one to knock. Rosie was practically frozen in fear, her hands fisted into tight balls at her sides as she hoped and prayed that Mary Margaret didn't turn her away like Regina did all those times. Every sleepover Henry asked for, Regina said no. Every dinner invitation, Regina shot down. Rosie figured she was lucky to be welcomed into the house at all anymore.

Mary Margaret opened the door, and her eyes fell onto Rosie first. "Ella Rose." She greeted fondly, though with an evident level of surprise, but then her eyes shifted to Emma and she understood,

"Sorry to bother you so late. Is that spare room still available? We can make it work." Emma assured, glancing at Rosie who nodded eagerly, not even caring if it came down to her sleeping on the floor of the hallway. Anything beat sleeping outside on rocks.

Mary Margaret opened the door wider, nodding for the young women on her doorstep to come inside. Rosie sighed at the heat the engulfed her immediately, her shoulders dropping just slightly as she looked around.

"Rosie, honey, if you want to put your school backpack on the hook by the door, it'll be out of your way." Mary Margaret smiled kindly, but Emma knew how bad of an idea that was on the very first night somewhere new; hence, her car keys now being in Rosie's pocket.

"I helped her pack and I threw some of her things in there." Emma excused, and Mary Margaret laughed, nodding her head.

"Okay, well, here's the bathroom, the kitchen. My bedrooms right through, and the guest bedroom is up there. Help yourselves to anything. There's snacks in that cabinet, Ella Rose. And towels are right in there." Mary Margaret looked incredibly thrilled with Emma and Rosie's company, and it eased something in the teenagers chest as she slowly became acclimated to the space.

Emma guided the girl upstairs, and once the door was closed, Mary Margaret doing her own thing downstairs, the teenager couldn't help but glance at the bed with the biggest smile on her face.

"It's so big!" Rosie whispered, rushing close to press her hand against the mattress, entirely in awe of how it melted beneath the pressure. Even Henry's mattress wasn't this soft, and Regina only got him the best of the best.

"You okay with sharing, kid? I'm sure Mary Margaret won't mind me taking the couch." Emma offered, but Rosie quickly shook her head.

"I don't mind!" She assured, "Do you think Mary Margaret will mind if I take a shower?" She asked carefully, and Emma quickly shook her head.

This was going to be good for them. Emma could feel it.

Chapter Text

the price of gold — chapter four
(season one, episode four)

storybrooke, maine
(present)

The bell tower chimed as Rosie walked beside Emma, a brand new backpack slung over her shoulders after a trip to the convenient store at the corner. She didn't know why she'd never purchased a new one before, but there was a slight spring to her step now that she had padded straps to grab onto as she trotted her way to school.

Her outfit was new too, although not purchased from the store. Mary Margaret had dug through her closet yesterday afternoon excitedly, showing off all the things she'd never worn to Rosie. Emma had been making them grilled cheese for lunch, occasionally calling into the bedroom regarding which tops she thought Rosie should consider trying on. It had been a very domestic Sunday, Rosie didn't even think half of it was possible.

Regardless, she strutted down the sidewalk in a pair of light denim jeans, a pair of socks, and Emma's hoodie. Even with the jacket Mary Margaret had pulled out of her closet now sitting in the closet Rosie and Emma shared, the teenager still opted for the broken in hoodie.

"You sure we can be out in the open?" Henry asked skeptically, knowing that he was still grounded and that Regina would likely blow a fuse if she caught them together just two days after the initial punishment distribution. They'd seen him last night, because Henry was never good at staying inside, but he was right, being out in the open felt vulnerable. Especially because it was Rosie's job to walk him to school, so there was no way for her to avoid a scolding if they got caught.

"Enough sneaking around. If your mom has a problem with me walking you to a school bus, I am more than happy to have that chat." Emma had tied her hair back into a ponytail that morning, so naturally Rosie sported the same style, her brown hair swinging behind her back with every step she took. Emma found her confidence charming.

"You're brave." Henry noted, craning his head to the side. "We'll need that for Operation Cobra." He'd told Rosie about their secret mission last night, not aware that his best friend and babysitter already knew, but Rosie let him ramble anyways. "Speaking of, do you think we need code names?"

"Isn't 'Cobra' our code name?" Emma frowned, glancing at Rosie, but the teenager only shrugged. She'd never been into the secret spy aspect of it all, leaving that to Henry.

"That's the mission. I mean us. I need something to call you."

Rosie's eyes widened, and Emma seemed just as taken aback. "Oh, uh. You could just call me Emma for now."

"Okay, well, I'll see you later, Emma." Henry smirked, getting on line for the bus. Rosie waved him goodbye, watching the doors close behind him.

"Why don't you ever get on the bus?" Emma frowned, only just beginning to notice that Rosie never did get on with Henry. There were days he walked to school, sure, but even when he didn't Rosie always walked alone.

"High School doesn't have to, and I like the walk." She shrugged. "I don't really want to go today though. I've never skipped before."

Emma smirked down at her, "Lucky for you, I know everything there is to know about skipping. You sure you want to taint your perfect reputation though, there's no going back once it's done. You'll officially be apart of the dark side."

"I'm sure." Rosie nodded eagerly, hardly concealing her giggles at Emma's taunting. She was desperate for something different, something spontaneous and out of the ordinary for Storybrooke.

Emma was about to lead Rosie back toward the docks when sirens startled them both. Graham pulled up along side them, pulling around the corner until the squad car blocked the intersection. Rosie smiled softly at the town Sheriff as he stepped out of the car.

"What's with the sirens" Emma questioned, stalking closer to meet Graham in the middle. Rosie followed after her, keeping just a step behind at all times.

"It's so hard to get your attention." Graham sighed, feigning exasperation. Rosie's eyes sparkled with amusement. Graham was one of the few people in this town that ever gave her the time of day.

"Well, you got it. Are you arresting me again?" Emma cocked an eyebrow, and Rosie covered her mouth with her hand, hiding a wide smirk.

Graham shook his head, his own amusement evident. "I'm thanking you. For your help finding that coma patient. We all owe you a debt of gratitude."

Rosie shivered at the vivid memory of David Nolan being found within walking distance of her tent. She was still sure that she'd known him once before, and that his name had been James then, but she hadn't told anyone — not even Henry.

"Well, what do I get? A commendation? A key to the city?" Emma jested, her eyebrow lifted in surprise.

"How about a job? I could use a deputy." Graham asked, and Rosie's jaw threatened to drop off of its hinges in shock. She would've never expected Graham to offer Emma a position at the department, let alone did she think Regina would've ever agreed to it. And, Rosie knew what a job would mean. It would mean that Emma really couldn't go anywhere, that she couldn't run; that she had roots here in Storybrooke, and in Rosie and Henry.

Emma glanced to her right, exhaling softly as she noticed Rosie's crestfallen expression. "Thank you, but I have a job." Emma turned down the offer regardless. She'd already made one big step by taking that room with Mary Margaret, she couldn't make an entire leap without first testing the limits of the first parameters set.

"As a bail bondsperson?" Graham inclined his head, squinting almost critically, his lips pursed into a thin line. The wrinkles in his forehead were exceptionally prevalent when he made that face. "There's not much of that going on around here."

"I don't see a lot of sheriffing going on around here either." Emma rebutted, and Rosie, despite wanting to be upset, had to agree that Graha didn't ever seem too tied up in work, and he was conveniently always lingering nearby.

"Well, here's your chance to see it up close." He shrugged, but then his eyebrows raised hopefully and Rosie knew he was desperate. This wasn't just an offer of extreme gratitude. "There's dental." He bribed. "Why don't you think about it? And stay awhile."

Emma grabbed a business card from him, glancing down at the white card stock between her fingers. She nodded, tapping her fingers against the card.

"And you, Miss Ella Rose. Why are you not on your way to school?" Graham quirked an eyebrow at the teenager, and she grew flush beneath his stare, suddenly not so sure about this plan of mischief. Rosie doesn't know how Henry does this all day every single day.

"Um, because Emma's gonna uh, well..." She trailed off, a nervous smile on her lips. Rosie Finch had never been very good at lying, and apparently it wasn't going to get any better.

Emma chuckled, pained sympathy written all across her face though humor was etched into her eyes as well. "Come on, Graham. Didn't you ever miss a day of school?"

"I can't say that I have." Graham frowned, looking like he was genuinely trying to remember if he'd ever skipped a day of a school. He couldn't remember school at all, maybe a vague memory of being inside one, but there was nothing cemented in his brain.

Emma tried not to think about how every time she asked somebody in this town a question about their past, they conveniently couldn't remember any information. It was times like these where she really wanted to throw reason to the wind and believe the ten-year-old.

"Fine, fine!" The Sheriff exclaimed after a beat of silence stretched between them, Emma with her arms crossed nad eyebrow raised, and Rosie looking absolutely defeated as she avoided Graham's gaze. "One day. One time."

Rosie beamed, nodding her head in understanding of his conditions. She rushed to hug him, taking them both by surprise. Graham didn't seem to mind though, because his arms wrapped around Rosie without a second to think about it, and he didn't stop squeezing until she was prying away.

Graham got into his squad car and drove away, and Emma turned to Rosie with a smile. "You got any ideas, or am I running the show?"

"Well, can we stop by Granny's? I want to change my schedule." Rosie questioned shyly, and Emma tilted her head in confusion.

"Yeah? What happened? Henry says you've had the same schedule for years." There was no reason for Emma to pry, but she found herself asking questions anyways, and Rosie didn't seem to mind answering them as they walked toward Granny's.

Rosie sighed, "I think that's what happened. It doesn't matter how much I sleep anymore, I'm always tired. Everything always hurts because I'm always tired, and I've been forgetting to do my homework after work. Granny doesn't need my help every day. When Ruby and I are both there, unless it's the morning, one of us just stands there. And, I don't even need the money. There's no vacancies in this town, I can't drive anywhere else when I turn eighteen, and I haven't spent half of what I've made since I turned thirteen. And I can't understand why." Emma didn't think they were just talking about Granny's anymore, but she didn't say anything, more than happy to just listen to Rosie vent. She doesn't think anyone else ever thinks to stick around for her. She's just always around for them. "Sometimes, do you think Henry's telling the truth?"

"Yeah." Emma sighed, pushing her hands into her pockets. "The more I ask questions in this town, the more nobody answers me. And, I'm still not buying into Regina's whole ploy of miraculously finding Kathryn the night David went missing."

"Every time something changes in this town, another hole pops up on my tent. The first hole, the one that Henry never let me forget about, it wasn't always there. It showed up a couple weeks after I got it, a couple days after Regina had adopted Henry. Then, everything was fine until the night David went missing. Or, I thought everything was fine. The night David went missing, another hole popped up in the roof of the tent. But, when we were moving all of my stuff out, I found a whole in the bottom. A hole that was never there before, that I throw the hoodie over at night." Emma's brain was going a million miles per minute. She hadn't gone back to the pages Henry had given her. She hadn't even thought about them since then. She didn't know who Eva Rose was supposed to be in the Enchanted Forest, or who her parents were, but she didn't remember the protection spell around the cottage, and she vividly remembers the illustration of tiny hands becoming white as they absorbed the power.

Was the tent really Storybrooke's embodiment of the cottage? Did slight changes in Storybrooke really equate to the disintegration of Rosie's beloved tent? Emma thought there was more heartbreak in the act of losing your home as you remembered your past than just forgetting who you are all together.

"And I'm scared." Rosie whispered, looking up at Emma with vulnerability shining bright in her green eyes. Emma felt honored that Rosie trusted her enough to be this open. She wished she'd had somebody like this when she was a teenager. "I've...I've never been scared before. It's like something just unlocked and I'm terrified. The woods scare me, walking Henry home at night by myself scares me, the way the stairs creek when you have to pee in the middle of the night scares me, and I don't know what to do about it!" Rosie's voice broke, and Emma felt her heart break. She was the adult in this situation, the one that had lived this life of separation and despair, and somehow she didn't see the signs — the depression, the anxiety, the change. Emma hadn't known Rosie long, but now she could see how different the kid looked from the first night they met, and not just because she'd finally had a real shower. "It's like one day I woke up and I realized that I shouldn't be okay living the way that I do, and I just want to stop feeling like I don't belong here." The teenager wept, and Emma didn't hesitate to pull her into a hug. In truth, she couldn't even begin to imagine the extent of what Rosie was feeling. She'd had a loving family until she was three, she'd been in and out of foster homes and group homes where she'd made friends and connections, she'd let her search for her parents fill a hole in her heart until she met Neal and that didn't have to happen anymore, and even after all of that, she had her own determination in jail, but she'd been older than Rosie, she'd lived more than the teenager probably ever would by then. In no world or realm would Emma ever be able to understand what it must feel like to wake up one day and realize just how bad you have it, and that not a single adult was willing to change it.

"I'm sorry, kid." Emma apologized softly, her chin dropping onto Rosie's crown.

"I think it would be easier if Henry's curse was real. If there was a reason for the missing time and the odd coincidences and the constant feeling like something is just the slightest bit off." Rosie prattled on, dragging her palms down her cheeks to clear the tears. "Like, I didn't even tell you," Rosie sighed, pulling away from the embrace and beginning to head toward Granny's. Emma frowned at the quick bounce in her emotions, noticing how that had been happening more and more often. "I was sure that John Doe's name was James. He was looking at me when they wheeled him in, and I got the strangest feeling that I'd known him when I was little."

"Has that ever happened before?" Emma questioned, slowing her pace as they approached Granny's. She didn't want to rush Rosie through this, and there was really no reason to now that she had committed to not attending school.

"No." Rosie shook her head, "I mean, I don't think so. I've known most people here my entire life, but that feeling... I'd never thought about him once before, but then I looked at him and I know that we've met, I just... I can't remember where."

Emma paled at the description of frustration, hating how the first thing her mind did was venture to the curse. What the hell was Henry Mills doing to her?

"In my experience, sometimes we block out things from our past, even if they're good. It'll come to you one day, you just have to let it." Emma promised, finally finding an answer that didn't feed into the delusions of a ten-year-old.

"You know, you're kind of everything I expected for Henry's birth mom." Rosie sighed, changing the topic. She didn't want to talk about herself anymore.

"Really?" Emma frowned, clearly taken aback by the statement.

"Mm-mm. I mean, not really looks wise, but it's the way you act. He's stubborn, and emotional, and definitely a bit of a flight risk when he's emotional, but he's got drive, and passion, and a whole lot of heart. He got that from you... somehow." Emma hummed, evidently over the moon with that revelation was her cheeks glowed and her eyes beamed.

"I'm gonna grab a hot chocolate, do you want one?" Emma questioned as they came up the sidewalk. Emma was sure that during the warmer months, the outside picnic tables saw quite a few patrons throughout the day.

Rosie nodded, "But no cinnamon. I'm allergic." She forewarned, having heard all about Henry's excitement regarding Emma liking her hot chocolate the same way that he does. "I'm going to go find Granny." She nodded toward the back, and Emma nodded, waving her off as she sat down.

The conversation with Granny went surprisingly well, once they got past her genuine confusion as to why Rosie would want to lessen her hours. The teenager worked at Granny's alone for thirty-six hours a week, sometimes more if she lost track of time, that felt utterly ridiculous to mention, especially when she remembered she works two other jobs and attends school from nine in the morning until three pm.

She was coming out of the storage room when Emma came barreled down the hallway, muttering beneath her breath as she aggressively pulled at her stained shirt. Rosie hadn't been gone that long, but Emma's entire mood had gone sour since she's left.

"Regina is out of her mind." Emma seethed, and suddenly it all made sense. Rosie rushed after the blonde, realizing that Emma was leading them toward the laundry room. "I don't know how you put up with her kid."

"The same reason you put up with her." Rosie rolled her eyes, and Emma couldn't argue with that. The only reason Regina was still hot on her heels came down to Henry, but Emma would endure the wrath for him any day. "What did she have to say?"

"That I'm a flight risk. That she has no doubt that I'm going to get up and bail on Henry. She's fucking psychotic!" Emma was a boiling kettle, but it didn't turn Rosie away. The teenage was relatively unphased by the blonde's little meltdown, sliding up onto one of the washers and glancing toward the corner of the room.

Emma ripped off her shirt, slamming the washer closed. She ripped a shirt off the rack, but when she noticed sniffling in the corner and Rosie's curiously squinted eyes, she relaxed. "You okay?" She asked the woman in the corner.

"The sheets, they're pink." The woman heaved, holding the sheets in her hands in what seemed like utter distress. Rosie had been there many times before, so all she could offer was silence as she nervously held her breath and glanced at Emma.

"Have you tried bleach?" The blonde questioned, a lack of inflection in her tone that only further unsettled Rosie who was never a good companion in stressful situations.

The maid, Rosie assumed she was the maid, dropped the sheets in defeat, revealing a positively round belly that forced her white apron to mold to its shape. "Oh." Emma mused.

"Last night, I felt contractions and the doctor said that the baby could come any day now." Rosie relaxed just slightly, holding onto the edge of the washer as she swung her feet. Her heels created a hollow thud every time they crashed back against the metal.

"So, that's great." Emma turned back to glance at the maid, elbows deep into a shirt that she was folding.

"It's just that uh, when the baby comes, no one thinks that I can do this. No one thinks I can do anything." She sniffled. Rosie glanced down at her lap when Emma's fingers brushed against her knee subconsciously, the blonde squeezing her comfortingly. "Maybe they're right."

"Screw them." Emma turned around, crossing her arms over her chest.

"What?" The maid stammered, slowly dropping the sheets as she stared blankly ahead at Emma.

"Screw them." Emma repeated strongly, her voice laced with the same burning white passion that dripped from Henry's tongue whenever anyone let him ramble to his hearts content about the curse. "How old are you?" Rosie had never heard Emma be so firm and direct, and she straightened up on the washing machine subconsciously, now certain she most certainly never wanted to end up on the other side of Emma's scolding even if it was just tough love and forced positive reinforcement.

"Nineteen." The maid answered. She was only two years older than Rosie, but the younger teenager could never imagine being in that circumstance anytime soon. It was truly a wonder how people could walk so many paths in the same boring small town.

"I was eighteen." Emma put out there, and for the first time, Rosie considered just how young Emma had been back then and how young she still was now.

"When you had a kid?"

"Yeah. I know what it's like. Everyone loves to tell you what you can and can't do, especially with a kid. But ultimately, whatever you're considering doing, or giving up, the choice is yours." Rosie nodded behind Emma, feeling compelled to contribute some way.

"It's not exactly what you might think it is." The older teenager, blonde and shy, tried to explain but there was no reason.

"It never is." Emma shrugged, unaffected. "People are gonna tell you who you are your whole life. You just gotta punch back and say, 'No, this is who I am.' You want people to look at you differently? Make them. You want to change things? You're gonna have to go out there and change them yourself, because there are no fairy godmothers in this world."

Emma pried Rosie off of the washer, the teenager frowning when she was given no choice. Emma smiled, and Rosie huffed, but they walked out of the laundry room together, finally heading off on whatever adventure they could go off on before Rosie had to walk Henry home from school.

— 🕊️—

Three days later, Rosie sat on her heels in Mary Margaret's living room, looking down at the few boxes that scattered the floor. Emma had all of her belongings shipped out from Boston, and they'd arrived that morning. Rosie had not been very happy about being woken up to help carry them inside, but now her excitement was fully peaked as Emma handed her a box cutter and told her to pick one.

"Oh, thanks!" Emma grinned when Mary Margaret came toward them with two plates, Rosie reached for one thankfully, shoveling a forkful of eggs into her mouth in a second. She was oblivious to both Emma and Mary Margaret smiling fondly at her.

"That's all your stuff?" Mary Margaret questioned, and for the first time, Rosie realized how few boxes littered the floor. She couldn't say anything though. Seventeen years of belongings fit into one backpack for her.

"What do you mean?" Emma questioned, brushing her hand against a wooden box.

"Is the rest in storage?" Mary Margaret questioned brightly, evidently still having not caught on to this being all Emma had.

"No, this is all of it. I'm not sentimental." Emma found a reason to explain, but it didn't feel necessary. Not to Rosie at least.

"Well, it must make things easier when you have to move." Mary Margaret smiled, and Rosie hummed, shoveling hash browns in this time, ketchup collecting in the corner of her lip. Emma rolled her eyes fondly, and Rosie smiled cheekily once she swallowed.

The teenager jolted in surprise when a knock echoed through the apartment. Mary Margaret frowned curiously, approaching the door with her eyebrows pulled together. She opened it quickly, unsure of who could be outside at this hour.

"Miss Blanchard, is Miss Swan here?" Mr. Gold questioned, and Rosie frowned, glancing at Emma curiously.

Emma approached the door, and Rosie followed; like always. It was becoming a habit, maybe a bit of a safety blanket in this new environment, but Emma didn't mind. If anything, she kind of thought it was sweet. She'd even admit to liking it if anyone were to ask.

Mr. Gold gave a look of surprise when he realized that Rosie was also in the apartment, but he moved on quickly. "Hi, my name is Mr. Gold. We met briefly on your arrival."

"I remember." Emma nodded, leaning forward to shake his hand.

"Good." Mr. Gold smiled, inclining his head. "I have a proposition for you, Miss Swan. I, uh, I need your help. I'm looking for someone."

"Really, um," Emma glanced at Rosie, Mary Margaret's head also inclined curiously as she listened.

"You know what, I'm going to go jump in the bath." Mary Margaret found an excuse to leave, and Rosie watched her bounce along the floorboards as she fled.

"I have a photo." Mr. Gold explained, having an inkling that Rosie would not be leaving Emma's side, and that Emma wouldn't be making Rosie leave her side. So instead, Mr. Gold just went on with his propositioning. "Her name is Ashley Boyd, and she's taken something quite valuable of mine."

"So why don't you just go to the police?" Emma questioned, swinging the door shut as she turned, Mr. Gold waltzing straight into their apartment.

"Because... she's a confused young woman, she's pregnant, alone, scared. I don't want to ruin this young girl's life, but I just want my property returned." Mr. Gold explained, and Rosie listened in carefully. She curled her body up on the stairs, breakfast and Emma's boxes in the back of her mind now.

"What is it?" Rosie wasn't blind to how Mr. Gold danced around the discussion of what this stolen object was, but her mind couldn't even begin to draw up a conclusion. Mr. Gold's shop was filled with a million things, Rosie just hoped it wasn't the sword she so desperately wanted, or the fork behind a glass cage that reminds her of The Little Mermaid.

"Well, one of the advantages of you not being the police is discretion." Mr. Gold glanced back toward the bathroom that Mary Margaret disappeared into, and Rosie tiled her head, more than interested. "Let's just say it's a precious object and leave it at that."

"Is it the sword?" Rosie piped up, and Emma turned to look back at her with squinted eyes. The teenager flushed, remembering that she probably shouldn't intrude.

Regardless, Mr. Gold smirked amusedly, his eyes dancing to find Rosie's. "It was not the sword, Miss Finch. And no, you still cannot purchase the sword regardless of your investment offer."

Emma smirked in amusement, but cast her attention back to Mr. Gold, feeling like she shouldn't be okay with Mr. Gold showing such interest in Rosie. The man had been kind enough to her she supposed, their paths hadn't crossed much, but everyone else was wary of him, everyone else looked over their shoulder for his face almost unconsciously, that was the part that Emma couldn't shake.

"When did you see her last?" Emma drummed her fingers against the photograph.

"Last night. That's how I got this." The pawn broker pulled his hair back, reveling a shallow laceration still puffy with blood. Emma reeled back in shock, Rosie only narrowed her eyes trying to decide how it could've happened. "It's so unlike her. She was quite wound up, rambling on and on about changing her life. I have no idea what got into her. Miss Swan, please help me find her. My only other choice is the police, and I don't think anyone wants to see that baby born in jail, now do they?"

"No, of course not." Emma raised her eyebrows, unable to believe Gold was really willing to play that card so early on into their negotiation. Rosie couldn't see Emma's face, but her own contorted into a grimace of disgust at the audacity of her favorite pawn broker.

"So, you'll help me then?" He asked for clarification.

Emma glanced back at Rosie who was watching her carefully, "I will help her."

"Grand." Mr. Gold was evidently pleased with that answer, but before he could see himself out, the front door creaked open and Henry came crashing inside.

"Hey, Emma—" He froze when he realized who occupied the other half of the apartment, but Mr. Gold didn't so much as wince at the look of horror Henry was giving him.

"Hey, Henry. How're you?" Mr. Gold smiled politely, his head tilted to the side as he made conversation.

Henry glanced to the side, making eye-contact with Rosie. "Okay."

Mr. Gold chuckled at his finicky response, stalking toward the door with his weight pressing into the cane. "Very well. Give my regards to your mother. And, uh, good luck, Miss Swan."

"He was trying to manipulate you, wasn't he?" Rosie squeaked from the stairs, her head still tilted in confusion as she turned the words over and over again in her head.

Emma glanced back at her, scoffing in amusement. "Yeah, kid."

"Do you know who that is?" Henry ambushed, leaving Rosie little time to respond. The teenager let it pass, turning her attention to the little boy who had come over for reason. Regina had a meeting today, Rosie offered to pick up an extra shift, Regina declined.

"Yeah, of course I do." Emma responded, confusion laced in her tone as she bent down by the boxes. Rosie hoped up from the stairs, suddenly remembering her plate of eggs and the belongings she was eager to look through.

"Who? 'Cause I'm still trying to figure it out."

Rosie was hands deep into the box, handing Emma random objects that didn't really seem to have any significance or design. Most of it was generic, simple, timeless. There was little personalization in any of the objects, but Rosie understood.

"Oh, I meant in reality." Emma glanced at Henry, but the boy only shrugged, evidently not bothered by Mr. Gold's lack of characterization.

"That's all you brought?" He asked instead, and Rosie couldn't figure out why it was such a surprise to everyone. This still seemed like a reasonable amount to her.

"Henry, what are you doing here?" Emma sighed, wondering if he'd only come over to criticize her.

"My mom's gone till five. I thought we could hang out." Henry smiled hopefully, and Rosie smiled softly at him.

"Aw, kid, I wish I could, but there's something I gotta do." Emma grabbed a new set of clothes, and then threw a shirt at Rosie's head. "Put that on." She instructed, and the teenager rushed up the stairs, a mouthful of eggs still being chewed. "You're actually going to choke one day!" Emma called after her.

Henry attempted to plead his case about tagging along as Emma and Rosie got dressed. Mary Margaret was still in the bathroom when they slipped out of the apartment. Emma had offered her red leather jacket to the teenager, but she'd turned it down and instead threw the grey swan hoodie overtop of her new t-shirt, the jeans Mary Margaret had thrown at her the perfect bottoms for the chilly day.

Henry was almost comical as he clasped his hands together and batted his eyelashes at Emma, "Please, let me come! Please!" Rosie thinks she will always find it funny how little kids tack please onto the end of a sentence and then expect an immediate reward. She can't remember have going through that phase, but Henry Mills abuses it by any means. Perhaps Regina had spent too many years trying to drill manners into his head by praising his every utterance of them — no, Rosie hated going down that path. She hated thinking that while maybe Henry was a bit of a brat, he deserved less love than he got. Rosie was glad he didn't know manners couldn't get you everything in life yet, even if she figured it was slightly humiliating for Henry to figure out on his own.

"No, it could be dangerous." Emma rebutted for what was probably the sixth time. Rosie wasn't sure how much more persistence Henry had left in him, almost certain that he'd finally met his match with Emma. Even Regina wasn't immune to bending whenever Henry was really set on something. The kid could be unnerving when he wanted to be.

"The pregnant maid is dangerous?" Henry threw his hands out in his side, and Rosie grimaced. He was a brat, and a bit of a whiner, but he usually made an aggravatingly valid point. Before she could even come to his defense, Henry reverted right back to the typical ten-year-old he was. "And you're letting Rosie go!" He tattled, but it was futile, considering Emma had already made up her mind about who got to ride shotgun in the buggy.

"She assaulted Mr. Gold." Rosie nodded, remembering that detail now that Emma had brought it up again. She'd have to alter that statement in her head for any later arguments she had with anybody — Henry Mills made an aggravatingly valid point most of the time.

"Cool." Henry beamed, and Rosie wanted to scream, now reforming that argument in her head to say — Henry Mills made an aggravatingly valid point sometimes. Rosie reached out to tug at the strap of his backpack, shaking her head.

"This isn't a game. She's desperate." Emma inhaled sharply, quickening her pace as they saw the yellow bug. Rosie grinned, rushing toward the car when she remembered that she'd left her beanie baby on the backseat after it had fallen out of her backpack. She'd found it in the dumpsters behind Mr. Gold's shop on her ninth birthday, and she'd told herself it was a present from rabbit that visited her in the mornings. Now, at seventeen, Rosie wonders if maybe it had just been a sign in general. A little something from the universe to keep her going when it mattered. Maybe Emma was that sign now.

"How do you know?" Henry huffed, half of his hands being eaten by the blue jacket he left unzipped around his shoulders. Rosie was sure that Regina did not want Henry out of the house, and she was simultaneously sure that if he were to get caught and his jacket was unzipped, she'd probably lose her head and smash all of his lego figures shamelessly.

"Because I know." Emma rolled her eyes, and Rosie rolled her eyes soon after. Henry should definitely know how to infer by now, she remembers Miss Blanchard drilling it into her head during the second week of school without remorse, he couldn't have escaped the same fate considering she'd given him a storybook that required the world of inferring and imagination.

"Sometimes I think you only turn your brain on when the conversations about something you like." Rosie muttered to the child, and Emma's lips quirked upward just slightly as she listened in. She'd never seen this side of Henry and Rosie's relationship. Rosie had been out of sorts in the earlier days of her trip, she was still out of sorts now, but for the first time Emma realized just how deep their relationship ran. If she didn't know that she had definitively only birthed one child, or that Henry was her biological son and not Reginas, she'd have assumed they were siblings as Henry tried to trip her in retaliation.

"Knock it off." Emma warned both kids, and Rosie's jaw unclenched in shock at the fact that she'd been grouped into the very maternal reprimand. Emma was falling farther and farther into the role of mother the longer she stuck around Storybrooke, it almost gave Rosie hope that one day she'd be able to reconcile things with Regina for Henry's benefit. Certainly the mayor couldn't stay irritatingly hostile when Henry was clearly thriving with the new relationship.

Henry, who was all too accustomed to being scolded for something, didn't even bristle. Instead he swung himself up onto the curb, cutting Rosie off as she went to climb into the passenger seat. "Well, then let's find her."

"Oh no, no, no, no. There's no 'let's.' You cannot came with me— us." Emma's eyes flickered to Rosie, silent confirmation that through any of this, she wasn't being kicked aside. Emma thinks that would do detrimental things to the teenager who seems to be only hanging on by a thread and simultaneously thriving.

"Fine. I'll look for her myself." Henry boasted, a smug smirk on his lips.

"Then I'll find you and bring you back." Emma counted just as smugly. Rosie felt like she was looking into a funhouse mirror that distorts your image, because surely this was the same person having an argument with themself.

"Then you wouldn't be helping the maid." Henry finally broke Emma, Rosie was sure of it. The blonde's hands crumbled at her sides, her jaw clenching and unclenched and she went weak in the knees for a single second.

"I am just trying to be responsible here." She exclaimed, her eyes wide as she tried to convince Henry to hear her out, but unfortunately he had the logic of, well, a ten-year-old, and his perception of danger and responsibility were still heavily tied to batman and vigilantes.

"And I'm just trying to spend time with you." Henry argued, and Rosie wanted to roll her eyes at the evident manipulation tactic, but a part of him was entirely genuine, and that was probably a worse blow.

"Oh, that is really not fair." Emma gasped, mouth agape as she turned to the car that Henry had already squeezed himself into. Rosie climbed into the passenger seat, buckling her seatbelt and making sure that Henry wasn't sitting on her beloved possession.

"Hey! Watch my bear!" Rosie batted at Henry's ankles, halfway bent over the center console as she fished to rescue the golden brown bear with a black heart around its left eye and a heart on each of its paws. It made no sense to Rosie, but she'd loved that stuffed animal since the first day she'd found it.

"Sorry." Henry apologized, his eyes wide, his feet quickly moving to avoid stepping on anything else. Rosie smiled, settling down in her seat with the palm sized bear clutched tightly in her grasp. "So the maid, what's her story?" Henry piped up from the backseat as Emma turned the ignition.

"I don't know, kid." Emma sighed, pulling down the street toward Granny's. Rosie figured that was the best place to start — the last place they had seen Ashley Boyd.

— 🕊️ —

"So, this boyfriend of hers, you don't think he was involved in her disappearance?" Emma asked, standing with her feet shoulder width apart and her fingers digging into the rough denim of her back pockets. Rosie stood at her side, her fingers threaded into the sleeves of her stolen hoodie.

"Uh, that would mean he's involved with her at all, which he isn't. He left her in the lurch right after they found out they were expecting. Hasn't spoke to her since. Like I said, he's a—" Rosie flinched when shattering metal drowned out Ruby's explanation, all of their heads whipping around to watch her car be lowered from a tow trucks hook. "Hey, hey hey, be careful! You almost shattered my wolf thing, Billy. It's good luck."

"I'm sorry, Ruby, but look, it's fine." He apologized, gesturing towards the wolf what really was still intact and hanging from Ruby's rearview mirror.

"Ruby, what's about her family?" Emma got closer, slightly perturbed that the waitress wasn't interested in their conversation when she was evidently friends with Ashley.

"Oh! Um. She's got a stepmom and two stepsisters that she doesn't talk to." Ruby explained, and Rosie tilted her head, her eyes alight with imagination. It was usually Henry bearing that expression, but it fit Rosie perfectly.

"Sounds like she's the modern version of Cinderella." Rosie quipped, not thinking too deeply into it, because the coincidences were glaringly obvious. There was no question in her mind whether Ashley Boyd was the real Cinderella, but she liked the similarities that made it seem like happiness and magic weren't so out of reach.

"Rosie, zip it." Emma scolded, and for the second time in only an hour Rosie Finch couldn't comprehend what was happening around her. Since when did adults start paying enough attention to her? Since when did anyone care enough to scold her at all? She wasn't so sure she would've liked this very much growing up.

"Look, I don't know what you've heard, but it's wrong. Everyone thinks she's not ready to have this kid, but she's trying. Taking night classes, trying to better herself, trying to get her life together. Can you understand that?" Ruby sighed, her shoulders sagging as her hands turned out at her sides. Rosie wasn't sure why people did that when they were being genuine, but she was noticing the small universal motion more and more as Henry did the most begging and pleading of his life trying to get Emma to believe in the curse.

"I think so." Emma inclined her head, her lips pinched together.

"Then maybe you should just stay out of it. She's been through enough already." Ruby crossed her arms over her chest, her pig tails falling in front of her shoulders. The woman always sported some addition of red in her outfits, and it just made Rosie feel like if circumstances were different, they'd have made good friends.

"I've been through it, too, Ruby, and I can help her." Emma clutched her keys, her jaw set into a firm line.

Ruby sighed, deflating. "Try her ex."

"Where can I find him?" She nodded slightly, taking the suggestion for whatever it turned out to be. It had been too long she since been in the game, but it was all rushing back to her as she questioned Ruby. Finding people was her thing. It would probably always be her thing and Emma couldn't explain why, only that being left on the side of the highway was a traumatizing experience even if she doesn't remember it.

"He lives with his dad."

Ruby had been more forthcoming than either Emma or Rosie had expected after that, sharing both his name and address with them on a post-it note before they turned away, leading Henry to the car wearing matching expressions of 'do not force yourself anymore into this'.

The drive was short to the neighborhood Sean lived in, but Henry kicked the back of Rosie's seat the entire drive, violently annoyed by the fact that she'd told him to zip his jacket and when he hadn't, she'd done it for him whist Emma laughed into her palm.

"Henry, I will make you sleep in the tent tomorrow if you kick my seat one more time!" Rosie seethed, her eyes narrowed into thin daggers that honestly terrified Henry. Very rarely did he push her buttons this much. Henry Mills respected Rosie Finch probably more than he did anyone else, but the balance between babysitter, friend, and honorary sister was something that could easily sway either one of their reactions to something. It had been a while since they found themselves on uneven playing fields — Rosie was trying to avoid being murdered by Regina who could be absolutely anywhere in town by now, and Henry just wanted to do this with his best friend because Emma was being conflictingly maternal with her scolding and sharp looks and grabbing hands that kept him from wandering off anytime he looked too curious. It was like she'd somehow learned everything about him already, and he couldn't blindside her as easily anymore. Henry Mills had never considered that finding his birth mother would then mean he had two parental figures to dodge and disobey.

Henry stuck his tongue out at her, something Emma had never witnessed. It was like these kids were falling in and out of trances where they lost themselves and found themselves again, and she couldn't be sure that she liked it at all. One minute they were fighting, one minute Rosie was parenting Henry like a seasoned expert, and then the next they were both just little kids blindly navigating the world. Maybe this was just typical sibling behavior, Emma had definitely had her fair share of spats and make-ups with her foster siblings, but something nagged at her that whatever this was — with Rosie specifically — had to be caused by more.

"Henry," Rosie pinched the bridge of her nose, "That is literally the lightest jacket you own. Having it zipped will not kill you. But, Regina catching you not only out of the house, but without your coat zipped in October.... she will kill me, even though you are not supposed to be my responsibility right now, so for the love of flipping Geppetto, will you just, like, cool it!"

"Geppetto?" Henry frowned, his fit over, a thing of the past, replaced by confusion as he looked at Rosie with wrinkled lips.

"Henry," Emma warned, finally raising her chin and searching to meet the kids brownish eyes in her rearview mirror. "Enough." She settled the score, and Henry sighed, muttering an apology to Rosie who only nodded tightly and turned toward the door.

"Just stay in the car." She pleaded, and Henry didn't feel like arguing again, so he slumped against the backseat and crossed his arms.

Emma climbed out after her, feeling like her line had definitely been stolen, and like the seventeen year old was a better parent than she'd ever be. "What was that about?"

"I offered to watch him today, Regina very adamantly said no. If she finds out he's with me... he's gonna get me fired one of these days, and then he's going to be trapped inside that house with her alone and go absolutely insane." She rambled, her hands balled up into fists at her sides.

"He's already crazy, kid. He's my kid, there's no way he could've outrun all of it. But, he also thinks of you as his big sister. I think the tent threat was a little traumatizing."

"A little bit of trauma's good. How else is he gonna be funny?" Rosie, finally seeming to lighten up, attempted a smile and Emma scoffed back a laugh.

"Finding out he was born in jail, by a teenage mother, put into the system, adopted after six weeks of nobody loving him enough to want him, and now thinking his mother is the Evil Queen... I think the kids looking at enough trauma in his future." Emma laughed, stalking up the driveway toward the front door.

"No, he found you. He, somehow, understands why you left him. Being adopted and having a young mom and being born in a jail, that's never going to be the thing that bothers Henry in life. And, Henry's got the biggest heart of anyone I know, if Regina finds the right way to show her love, he'll forgive her. Stop beating yourself up over things that Henry doesn't even think should bother him."

Emma Swan was never not amazed by the complexities of Ella Rose Finch.

— 🕊️—

enchanted forest
(thirty years ago)

Tiny hands pulled apart thick bushes, flowers blooming beneath warm palms. Little knees were oblivious to jagged rocks digging into her harshly, only focused on the sound of pittering hooves as royal horses traveled near.

"What are you doing?" Eva Rose nearly jumped out of her skin, looking to the left to find a friend beside her. She grinned at the presence of the dark haired woman, rushing forward to hug her tight.

"Prince James and Snow White are coming, Red! Can't you hear their carriages!" She beamed, remembering Rosetta informing her of the royal couples names time and time again. The child, who believed being cute could award her anything in life, was always displeased to be reminded that she couldn't just call people anything she wanted. She didn't mind it so much now though, her and Rosetta made it into a game, and if she remembers to call them by their right name, she gets to add another type of seed to her flower purchases. She hasn't messed up since they stared the game.

Red glanced out through the bushes, tuning in close until she could make out the sound of hooves pattering against dirt roads. "Well, I suppose they are!" She giggled, sitting on her legs as she waited for them to pass with Rosie.

"I see them! I see them!" She grinned, poking one tiny hand fully out of the bushes until her elbow was prickled by sharp thorns. Her little eyes continued to peak out until they found the large white carriage, and spritely she waved with all of her might until the blue eyes of the Prince met hers and he waved back. "Wasn't that wonderful, Red?!"

Red laughed, brushing the dirt off of her dress as she stood up. "I guess it was, Rosie, but you should be getting back now. The queens guards wander nearby sometimes."

"Will the guards take me back to the castle and show me around?" Rosie questioned, her head inclined to the side curiously.

Red gasped, shaking her head. "You do not ever want to get caught by the Queen or her guards."

Rosie shrugged, unaffected. She still hadn't quite realized that she didn't always need to actively be given a reason to fear something or avoid someone, an Rosetta, bless her, was desperately trying to teach her before she went and got herself killed. But, Rosie thought she was the bravest girl in the world, so Rosetta was certain she'd done too good of a job at the whole parenting thing.

Rosie perked up as she heard the chimes of Rosetta's wind chime, her smile brightening. 'It's time to come home now, Posie' the words followed in her head.

"Bye, Red! I gotta go!" Eva Rose grinned, the fairies call sparkling warm tingles through her own magic that tickled her skin pleasantly.

— 🕊️ —

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Rosie followed behind Emma, the florescent lighting unfamiliar and the continuous chatter and faint alarms going off unsettling. Rosie Finch could count the amount of times she'd been inside of a hospital in her entire life, and the answer wasn't even yet five times. She felt out of places as she watched stretchers fly by and nurses administer medication through the click of a button. It all felt so new to Ella Rose, and she couldn't hide her overstimulation.

She'd been okay up until a handful of hours ago, though gradually she was becoming accustomed to this routine of unsettle. It was all of these little things compiling, slowly drowning her, filling her up to the very tippy top with pressure that she couldn't expel. Rosie Finch was certainly going to blow one day soon.

"Well, well, well." Gold trailed off, a paper cup placed under the spout of a coffee machine in the hallway. Her nose twitched at the deep brown color splashing into the cup. "Must be my lucky day. Would you care for a cup, Miss Swan?"

"A baby? That's your merchandise?" Emma couldn't believe the words coming out of her mouth, who in their right mind hired another person to track down and ensure the forced possession of a child that was already so loved and treasured. It was cynical. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Mr. Gold smirked, his eyes wandering to Rosie who hadn't taken her eyes off of Emma, not that the blonde noticed the teenagers sudden dependence on her presence. Emma still remained unaware as Gold began down the hallway once more, "Well, because at the time, you didn't need to know."

"Really? Or you thought I wouldn't take the job?" Emma's voice raised an octave, and Rosie cowered at the added sound.

Mr. Gold thought he was entitled to a baby. Ashley Boyd was becoming more and more alike to Cinderella. The lights are bright, the sounds are constant. Rosie's head was spinning as she tried to navigate the winding overgrown path in her head.

"On the contrary, I thought it would be more effective if you found out yourself. After seeing Ashley's hard life, I thought it would make sense to you. I mean, if anyone could understand the reasons behind giving up a baby, I assumed it would be you." Mr. Gold spat, and Rosie recoiled backwards at the blow. Henry's eyes squinted from where he sat in the waiting room, no doubt listening in.

"You're not getting that kid." Emma remained calm, but Rosie wasn't blind to the steel force of anger covering her words.

"Actually, we have an agreement, and my agreements are always honored. If not, I'm going to have to involve the police, and that baby is gonna end up in the system. And that would be a pity. You didn't enjoy your time in the system, did you, Emma?" Rosie's hands balled up into fists, her green eyes becoming those sharp daggers again.

"That baby's not going to like growing up in a tent either. Not knowing it's birthday until they go to school, not having anything to eat unless theirs extras in the cafeteria or they get a job on top of everything else. You don't leave this town, Mr. Gold. Where did you even find a couple to take this baby?" Rosie wanted to stomp her feet into the floor. This was different than all the times she'd gotten mad at Henry. This felt hot and heavy inside her belly, like true anger.

Emma was quick to reach out and wrap a hand around the teenagers wrist, cooling her rambling as she looked ready to either burst into tears or punch Gold in the face. "Why don't you go sit down, kid." Emma fished a couple of fingers into her back pocket, pulling out a ten. "Let Henry stretch his legs, make sure he gets you more than one bag of fruit snacks." Emma emphasized, remembering the last time she'd allowed Henry to purchase snacks for the two of them and he'd somehow purchased not a single thing Rosie liked — or was willing to try — aside from probably the smallest bag of fruit sacks Emma had ever seen. She didn't want to speculate, but she's still not sure if Rosie had eaten anything else that day.

Rosie sulked away, the ten dollar bill clutched between her thumb and pointer finger. There was a sick feeling in her stomach, like something was coming up whether she liked it or not.

"Emma said you can take a walk and get us some snacks at the vending machine." Rosie smiled, offering him the bill as she sank into the black chair beside him.

Henry narrowed his eyes at her, "Are you okay? You look sick."

"You never tell a girl she looks anything less than beautiful, Hen." Rosie taunted, and the little boy rolled his eyes, but he did think Rosie was beautiful. He thought she looked like everything a princess and a hero were supposed to be. "Get me good snacks this time." She tacked on, receiving a salute from Henry.

Rosie watched him walk away, his back turned to her as she traveled down the hallway. She was fine for a second, but then she was on her feet and rushing toward where she'd seen the last bathroom sign. She could barely get the stall door closed behind her before she was leaning over the bowl, trying desperately not to think about the fear, or the germs, or the pain, or why this was happening to her.

It didn't last long. Maybe five minutes. Rosie stood up, feeling very confused about what had just overcome her, but not disheartened by the quick departure of whatever it was. She washed her hands, swished some water in her mouth, and then found the chairs where she'd left Henry. He was back, this time with a chocolate bar in his hand and a bag of doritos in his lap, whilst whatever he'd picked out for Rosie sat in her seat along with a bottle of strawberry lemonade.

"There wasn't enough for two drinks, so it's not just for you, but I got your favorite." Henry explained and Rosie smiled fondly.

"Thank you." She responded. Her eyes trailed over to where Emma and Gold were not having a heated discussion between themselves, and it felt like something inside of her felt right. Rosie bit her lip to suppress the sigh of relief bubbling in her chest.

She peeled open her bag of cheese doodles, grinning impossibly wide as she plucked one up between two fingers. She settled it between her lips and crunched obnoxiously loud, wiggling in joy as she munched.

"Kid, you coming to talk to Ashley?" Emma called out to neither kid in particular, her gaze bouncing between Rosie and Henry.

Henry nodded enthusiastically, but Rosie shook her head. "I'm not really into babies." She excused and Emma laughed softly, leading Henry away.

Rosie remained in that chair, eating cheese doodle after cheese doodle until there was a thick layer of powder on her fingertips and nothing left in the bag. She was just about to reach for the chocolate bar when Emma and Henry came barreling down the hallway. "Come on, Rosie! It's almost five!" Henry bellowed.

Rosie's eyes widened and she shot up from the seat

Chapter Text

the shepherd — chapter five
(season one, episode six)

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Rosie winced as she sat beside Emma on a bench in David Nolan's house. She felt uncomfortable, and not just because the bruises adorning her face and ankle still ached at the slightest application of pressure, but because she still felt like she knew David — James. She'd been seeing his face in her dreams since Henry had dragged her down into the mines, flashes of his blue eyes between bushes and cobblestone cottages in a beautiful village. She'd searched his storybook for nearly an hour one night while he was getting ready for bed, but every 'memory' she had was somehow missing, only meaning one thing, they hadn't happened in the Enchanted Forest. But, they also hadn't happened in Storybrooke.

"You know why he doesn't remember? The curse isn't working on him yet." Henry explained from the outside of the bench. Rosie was sandwiched between the mother and son, trapped between their conversation that she wanted no part of.

"Henry, David has amnesia." Emma tried to explain to Henry, but he wasn't seeming to understand how amnesia worked. Rosie wished she'd wake up with amnesia, she was getting tired of clouded memories and strange gut feelings.

"Which is preventing the curse from replacing his fairy tale story with fake memories." Henry tried to break it down for Emma, and Rosie hated that she could understand his reasoning. It brought her back to a thought she'd had weeks prior — Henry Mills made an aggravated valid point some of the time.

"Right. Because everyone here has fake stories that prevent them from remembering who they really are." Emma nodded, her mind circling back to the storybook pages she had shoved in the nightstand on her side of the bed back at Mary Margaret's apartment. She hadn't had a chance to read them, Rosie always at her side or turning in her sleep beside Emma, but she wondered what they said. She wondered who Rosie supposedly was. Emma was desperate for ways to help her, even if it was beyond silly, she'd take suggestions blindly from a fairytale.

"Right. And now's our chance to help him. We just have to get him to remember that he..."

"He's Prince Charming." Emma exhaled, hardly able to forget that Henry believed Prince Charming was her father. After twenty-eight years, the first person with enough ambition to help her find her parents is a kid — her kid — who thinks she's a Disney princess.

"We just have to jog his memory by getting him and Ms. Blanchard together." Henry explained and Rosie frowned. She'd wanted no part of this conversation sure, but she was trapped in it, and it did, unfortunately, make for entertaining rambling.

"Didn't we already try that?" The teenager questioned, wincing as she reached for a bruise on her nose. She'd fallen head first into the mine when she'd been searching for Henry, and the purple-ish yellow patches across her nose and right cheek said she'd been through the wringer clearly. Her ankle was a whole other issue, black and blue from a stone crushing it as it fell from the top of the mines. Rosie Finch could've killed Henry Mills that day.

"And it woke him up." He sang brightly, and Rosie couldn't deny that it had woken him up, even if it could be chalked up to a medical coincidence. Rosie didn't believe that for a second, but she'd like to consider that David and Mary Margaret just had a natural chemistry in this world, not that stories of their 'past' had sparked his heart again.

"Hey," David approached, and Rosie sat up straighter, her green eyes practically glowing as she got her first up close look at David. "You're the ones who saved me, right?"

"Oh, yeah, I guess." Emma chuckled softly, standing up to talk with David. Rosie stood up too, trying to conceal her wince of pain as she put pressure on her ankle at an awkward angle.

"And you're also the only ones I know here." Rosie cracked a grin at that, and David noticed, smiling wider as he made eye contact with her.

"Well, you can definitely hide with us." Emma offered, and David seemed to relax at the invitation to get away from his wife. That's all that Rosie could assume troubled him at least, he didn't know anyone else here enough to appear so weighed down.

"Fantastic. Thank you." David turned, spearing a carrot with a toothpick as someone came over with a black tray.

"So, you ever use a sword?" Henry questioned immediately afterward, and David choked on a surprised laugh as his eyes flickered down to the young Mills.

"I'm sorry?" He smiled, holding the carrot away from his chest. "Emma, you live with Mary Margaret, right? You know if she's coming tonight?"

"No, she couldn't make it." Emma winced apologetically, but Rosie's eyes flicked down to the floor, unable to look David in the eye while Emma lied. She'd always been an awful liar, even if she wasn't the one talking.

David nodded understandingly, glancing off to the side when he realized he was being beckoned over by a group of guys. Rosie frowned, for a moment it seemed like the name David didn't mean anything to him at all, like she wasn't going crazy fixating on the potential that his name had been James before he vanished and fell into a coma.

Other than their brief conversation with David, Rosie thought attending the party was a complete waste of time. They'd been home by ten o'clock, but all night Rosie just felt uncomfortable, and she'd have rather felt uncomfortable at home with Mary Margaret. She'd fallen asleep before her head had even hit the pillow, Emma not even upstairs yet as she unpacked the nights events with Mary Margaret on the couch.

The next morning, Rosie woke up to Mary Margaret vigorously scrubbing dishes. She rubbed her eyes sleepily, blinking drearily at her old teacher. "You might want to ease up or that Brillo Pad's gonna press charges." Emma's voice rattled the apartment, and both Rosie and Mary Margaret flinched, not noticing her presence.

"The dishes were just piling up." Mary Margaret excused, putting down the plate she'd been scrubbing compulsively.

"This have anything to do with David stopping by?" Emma questioned, beginning to pull her jacket off of her shoulders.

"David stopped by?" Rosie frowned, turning her head to glance at Mary Margaret. "When did David stop by?"

Mary Margaret sigh, pulling a hand down her face. "Last night."

"But," Rosie frowned, her head tilting to its side. "Oh, this is where he disappeared to after we talked to him."

"I saw him sulking away as we pulled up." Emma, evidently,hadn't brought it up last night, wanting to see if Mary Margaret would crack beneath the pressure first. She was definitely cracking, but not in the way Emma expected.

"I didn't see him." Rosie noted, moving to sit at the countertop. She grinned at Mary Margaret sleepily, resting her cheek against her palm as she slumped over.

"Kid, I think the only thing you saw last night after we left the party was the back of your eyelids. I think that's the only thing you're seeing right now." Rosie didn't have a response for that, not verbally at least. The teenager just slumped farther down onto the counter, covering her head with both of her arms as she closed her eyes. Emma shook her head, turning her attention back to Mary Margaret.

"We just... He just..." Mary Margaret sighed, moving her hands around the dishes in the sink, attempting to keep them busy.

"I know what your both 'just.' And you did the right thing." Emma tried to encourage, sliding onto another one of the stools at the island as the sun rose overtop of Storybrooke. Rosie was really considering going back to bed, the ten full hours the night before evidently not enough to refuel her.

"But he's still married." Mary Margaret battled with herself, and Rosie lifted her head up groggily. She stumbled to the cabinets, pulling out the package of oreos Mary Margaret had come home with the other day.

"I know. I was just at the party last night." Emma teased. Rosie slipped back up onto the stool, sliding the oreos over until they tapped Emma's fingers. The blonde did not have to be asked to indulge in a cookie, batting Rosie's hand out of the way when the teenager tried to dip in first.

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes at both girls in front of her, turning toward the fridge to pull out some eggs. Emma and Mary Margaret had both learned that Rosie's favorite food was scrambled eggs, and they both felt a bit like toddler parents constantly making sure their were eggs in the apartment so that teenager stood a change of eating something. Oreos were apparently another thing Mary Margaret was going to be picking up weekly. Not that she minded. It felt nice to have a full house; right.

"What do I do?" She sighed, looking back over at Emma over her shoulder. Rosie looked dead to the world as she munched on an oreo with her eyes closed, and Mary Margaret could only wonder what was so draining in the teenagers world.

"You need to stop cleaning and have a drink." Emma stood up, her eyes searching the counter until she found two glasses that looked something like a flute. Rosie watched through squinted eyes as Emma grabbed orange juice and some kind of alcohol, though she wasn't all that interested in analyzing what. "Here's the thing. I don't know a lot about relationships, other than having many that failed. But generally speaking, if you think something you wanna do is wrong, it is. So you gotta stay strong, and he has to figure out his life."

Mary Margaret accepted the makeshift mimosa from Emma, clanking their glasses together as a look of understanding washed over her face. "Cheers." She smiled weakly, and Emma matched the expression.

"Cheers." Rosie mused from the counter, waving her oreo around in front of her until she caught the rim of Emma's glass successfully.

"Why are you so tired, kid?" Emma laughed, sitting down beside Rosie at the counter again.

"Dunno." Rosie mused, "I'm going to bed again. Goodnight." She muttered eventually, slugging her way up the stairs and back toward the bedroom just as Mary Margaret got the eggs off the pan. The school teacher rolled her eyes in exasperation, but didn't really mind all that much.

— 🕊️—

It was after three o'clock when Rosie stumbled into the sheriffs station with damp hair and a new outfit. She grinned brightly at Emma as she bounced into the station, claiming the rolling chair closest to the window as her own even if the seat definitely belonged to Graham who was strangely missing from the scene.

"I had another dream about James — David. That's the fifth one since he woke up." She exclaimed dramatically, spinning in the chair with her head tilted toward the ceiling. "They're not even bad dreams, but I wake up exhausted."

"You look better." Emma hummed thoughtfully, making note of how Rosie's skin had a bit of a glow to it that it lacked this morning.

"Yeah, because after I went back to bed, I came downstairs and took a nap on the couch. That nap did not include David Nolan." Rosie explained, letting her head fall back until she was looking up at the ceiling tiles. "Henry's book is invading my dreams and it's slowly driving me crazy."

"But what if he's not... crazy, I mean?" Emma frowned, wishing that she wasn't trying to argue in Henry's defense. She didn't know how she'd come to this, how three weeks in Storybrooke had her questioning everything she believed.

"You believe him?" Rosie frowned, spinning in half circles as she bounced pressure between the balls of her feet. She doesn't know why she hasn't come in here more often. Graham most likely wouldn't kick her out, and spinny chairs might just be her new favorite thing.

"Maybe. There's something weird going on here, I think... I don't know what I think, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, he might be seeing something else, something that he doesn't understand and this is how he can make sense of it. I mean, all the coincidences, all the mysterious appearances and medical miracles? Something is happening here." Emma explained and Rosie nodded, understanding.

"I've been thinking about trying to find 'Rosetta'." Rosie explained softly, hesitantly letting her eyes wander to Emma. "If everyone here is from his book, then she must be here too, right? If I let myself believe in him, then I let myself believe there's a possibility that theres someone in this town who loves me. I can't do that if it's not true. I haven't missed having a family in seventeen years. Not one mother's day did I cry, not one father's day did I hope to go fishing... but then Henry found you, and Mary Margaret found David, and... I want to know where I came from too. I don't even know where I was left! I just have this memory of being seven and out in the woods, and nothing else. Glimpses of red hair, maybe a whisper of my name, but no faces, no places, nothing helpful."

Emma's heart sank, and for the first time she realized why Henry had never shown Rosie the torn out pages from his book. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said finding out would ruin Ella Rose, but Emma thinks being left in the dark is just as worse a fate. Whether the curse was real and it was being broken down by dormant light magic, or Rosie Finch was just the luckiest orphan ever to go so many years without missing her home, the teenager was making her own connections and realizations now. She'd end up hurt either way.

Before Emma could tell Rosie about the torn out pages, the ones she'd read anyways, both of their heads snapped sideways when shoes padded against the tile floors. Graham's eyebrows raised in surprise when his eyes found Rosie sitting comfortably in his chair, but he continued on toward Emma without deliberation, holding a box of pastries out to his deputy.

"Sometimes the cliches are true." He mused with a tight smile, flipping the box open to reveal strawberry glazed donuts with rainbow sprinkles. Rosie hadn't ever tried a strawberry donut. They were Henry's favorites, so whenever Regina had donuts on the counter, normally a weekend treat, Henry always beat her to the deliciously pink looking ones. Rosie's fingers twitched on the armrest of the rolling chair, eager to try one, but not willing to embarrass herself if Graham had no plans of sharing with anyone besides Emma.

"Okay. What do you want?" Emma took the bait, blue eyes flickering up to meet Graham's.

Graham sighed, "Remember when I said no night shifts?" Emma's head tilted to the side, and Graham seemingly doubled his pleading efforts. "I need you to work tonight. Just this once."

"Why?" Emma whined, and Rosie had to stifle her giggles behind her palm. Ever since she'd dropped a majority of her shifts at Granny's, only working three school mornings a week now, she'd found it more than enjoyable to watch other people slave away. Regina primarily. She acted like being mayor was such an inconvenience when she was the one gripping the title in an iron fist.

"I volunteer at an animal shelter and the supervisor's sick and someone needs to feed the dogs." Graham explained, and Rosie knew Emma was fuming. She couldn't turn down the late hours now, not when Graham had just laid that onto her.

"Very lucky you bought a bear claw." Emma huffed, reaching into the box. Rosie hadn't even realized there was a bear claw hiding in the bottom corner, but she noted that Emma made a very noble choice by selecting it.

"What about you, little lady? Donut?" Rosie's eyebrows pinched together at the nickname, her head tilting on its axis as she tried to find a reason for Graham suddenly calling her anything beside her name. She didn't think too much of it, rushing toward the box with an eager smile and diving toward one of the strawberry donuts. "Favorite?" Graham chuckled, watching her with sparkling eyes.

"Never had one! Henry always takes them." Rosie answered in snippets, taking a large bite out of the donut the second Graham was pleased with her answer. Rosie hummed, "No wonder he hogs them." She grumbled, liking the icing off another portion of a donut as Emma rolled her eyes fondly, trying not to think about how she wanted to lecture Henry about sharing. It seemed there wasn't much Rosie didn't sacrifice for the little boy, and Henry didn't seem aware of any of it.

"Emma, can I talk to you for a minute?" Mary Margaret came rushing into the station, and Rosie frowned at the panic in her voice as she jogged in. Rosie took another bite of her donut, unaware that she and Emma made the same face as the glanced over their shoulders.

"I'll just go patrol my office." Graham excused himself, "You want a tour, Ella?"

"Not really." The teenager answer and Graham laughed beneath his breath, shaking his head as he left the women to have whatever conversation needed to be had. Emma nor Mary Margaret seemed to bothered by Rosie's insistence to remain present, in fact, they both looked equally unsurprised.

"Thanks." Emma smiled, taking another bite of her bear claw as she set a file down on her desk. Rosie had been so amped up on the running potential of finding Rosetta, that she hadn't even thought to be nosy and now her chance was blown.

Mary Margaret fiddled with her fingers, looking anxious for a second before she blurted, "He left his wife. David. He left her. He left Kathryn!" She exclaimed, the anxiousness slowly melting into excitement. Rosie had never seen love up close before, but she likes the soft blush on Mary Margaret's cheeks as she rambles.

"Okay, slow down." Emma was less affected by the state of enamor that Mary Margaret had essentially drowned herself in, having seen this rodeo a few hundred times, not counting the times she'd lived it herself.

"He did it for me. He wants me to be with him. He wants me to meet him tonight. I mean, I'm trying so hard to be strong, but he just keeps coming. I mean, how do I stop it? You know, how do I let him down? What would you do?" Mary Margaret rambled, pointing her last question at Emma. Rosie wanted to be offended that Mary Margaret hadn't chosen to consult her too, but she'd have probably just agreed with whatever Emma said anyways.

"I'd go." The deputy exclaimed, and Mary Margaret's eyebrows shot upwards, like she wasn't expecting that positive confrontation. "Well, he left her. It's one thing to say that he wants you, but it's another to actually make a choice, and now he has. That's all you can ask for."

"Given her new friendship with Kathryn, I don't think Regina would be happy." Mary Margaret posed, sitting on the edge of Emma's desk as she took another bite of the bear claw. Rosie was still licking icing off the donut, apparently unaware that she looked like a fool.

"All the more reason to do it." Emma sighed heavily.

Mary Margaret took a second to consider her choices, a smile pulling at her lips that Rosie couldn't distinguish. "Good Lord, is this really happening?" She breathed lowly.

"You tell me." Emma smiled around a mouthful of pastry, and Rosie took another bite of hers, wiggling in her seat as her blood absorbed the sugar. First meal of the day being a donut at four o'clock was probably not her best move, but it was certainly delicious.

Mary Margaret nodded, grabbed her purse and stood up. "Okay." She nodded, seemingly having absorbed all of the advice that she'd came here seeking.

"Okay?" Emma asked, and received a strong nod and a mimicked answer. They both watched Mary Margaret walk out, their faces mirroring the same confusion. They'd never seen anybody so absolutely sure of what they wanted, but also so torn between going after it.

"Can I stay here with you tonight?" Rosie asked after a moment.

"Sure, kid. But that means you're on stapler duty." Emma threw a handful of papers onto the desk beside her, nodding toward the stapler that was sitting on the corer of the desk Rosie sat behind.

— 🕊️ —

enchanted forest
(twenty-eight years ago)

A small child was all tucked up into bed, a pink blanket pulled up close to her chin and pressed into the sides of her body. A yawn pulled little pink lips apart, missing teeth on display as Eva Rose fought bedtime.

"You aren't sleepy? Well, I find that hard to believe." Rosetta smiled fondly, perched on the edge of the bed. There were petals still entangled in the child's hair, but she'd been adamant against plucking them out tenderly, wanting to keep them where they were until tomorrow when she'd get the chance to roll around in the hills again.

"Etta, am I a princess?" Rosie asked, yawning sleepily as she rubbed at her eyes. She never did sleep with her arms beneath the blanket, fearless as ever despite the threats that loomed overhead at any moment. Rosetta doesn't know how Eva Rose came to be so brave, because she'd spared no single detail about the cruelty of the queen and her knights.

"I thought we'd gone over this, petal?" The fairy whispered fondly, still stroking the child's hair back. Rosie shivered when pointed nails scratched at her spine, sending shivers through her body that were pleasantly addictive.

"But princesses have crowns, Etta. I do not have one, and I think I would like one." Rosie tried to sit up, but Rosetta guided her back down onto the pillows, shaking her head as she shushed the small princess entrusted in her care.

"A crown, huh?" The red haired fairy teased, not wearing a disguise as she allowed her frame to remain at full size. Her red hair was beautiful as it fell down her shoulders, and though she didn't have confirmation, she thinks Eva Rose's obsession with the color stems from her spiraling tresses. "Well, I think I can make that happen." With a twirl of her hand and the whisper of something sweet, the petals in Rosie's hair twisted into a chain and then a crow, the pink and red petals encased in something shimmery.

"But it will die, and then I will not have a crown again." Rosie frowned delicately, and Rosetta smiled fondly at her soft heart.

"These petals will not wilt, my Rosie Posie. Your magic will keep them alive as long as you remain kind. And I have not one doubt you'll manage that." Rosetta kissed the child's head, and in an instant she was tiny, fluttering above Rosie's head in pink and red hues.

"Goodnight, Etta." Rosie sighed, settling into the mattress and closing her eyes. The only thing on her mind was that one day she was going to live a real princess life.

Chapter Text

the heart is a lonely hunter — chapter six
(season one, episode seven)

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Rosie huffed as she padded down the stairs, rubbing at her eyes as she fought to keep sleep from taking over again. She'd had two nights without David's face in her dreams, but the lack of his presence had been replaced with the sticking feeling that her skin was itching all over and her head was pounding with thickness.

"You guys are so loud." She whined, stomping down the last stair and padding toward the island where Mary Margaret had poured out a mug of coffee. Rosie didn't hesitate before she claimed it as her own, and Emma definitely regretted making the teenager a cup yesterday, given in twenty four hours this was the third cup that Rosie had jacked from someone else. "And you never call someone after a one night stand. That's literally the point of it being only one night." Rosie grimaced, shaking her head in a combination of disappointment and annoyance.

"How do you know what a one night stand is?" Emma squinted at the teenager, evidently startled to realize that Rosie wasn't the child Emma saw in her sometimes. She had sides, shades, Emma had been ignorant to that for a while, but only because Rosie Finch could put on one hell of a performance when she wanted no form of attention onto herself.

"You heard that?" Mary Margaret paled, looking horrified that Rosie had evidently been an unwilling listener to her more scandalous activities. She'd gotten used to having people in her space, yes, but all of them were still figuring out just how loud a whisper could be in the morning. Evidently, she still had another octave to bump down her voice before Rosie could sleep through it.

"I'm seventeen, Emma. Let's not pretend you didn't know what a one night stand was at seventeen." Rosie looked at the blonde pointedly, and Emma narrowed her eyes, willing herself not to let the teenager get under her skin. She knows why Henry's so quick to physical frustration, Rosie just had a way of being infuriating without needing to do anything at all. Emma felt like a scolded sister — a feeling she'd been chasing since the 1990s when it slipped through her fingers the first time. Was that what this was? Did she see fragments of Lily in Rosie? Emma had to remind herself that there wasn't any shame in missing people from her past, or finding likenesses to parts of them and allowing herself to move on. Rosie would never be Lily, but she had the same fire. Emma hoped that this time around she'd get to watch how that fire matured.

"You're feisty, today." She noted and Mary Margaret giggled from behind her mug of coffee. She'd have to start just making Rosie her own cup to begin with, or perhaps let the teenager create a million concoctions until she found the version of coffee she liked the best. That sounded like the more enjoyable approach to Mary Margaret, and she'd love the added benefit of getting to know just one more little thing about Rosie.

Rosie hummed, not responding as she reached for a banana at the end of the counter. It was still slightly green, and assuredly too firm between her fingers to be sweet, but it was something she knew how to make — because she didn't have to make anything at all. She accepts anytime Emma or Mary Margaret offer to make her whatever their having, but she can't find the courage to ask for a meal herself, and it's mortifying to be seventeen years old with no knowledge of how to work a stove. Regina always had strict instructions that Rosie was only allowed to order delivery, or microwave whatever was in the fridge whenever she babysat Henry. So, even when she'd had amble opportunity to learn, it'd just never come up. And, Granny didn't hire Rosie to cook, so the kitchen was the last place she ever wandered into unless needing to directly consult the chef, and if she was doing that, she was not letting her gaze wander to what he was putting into the tomato soup.

"I've gotta go." Mary Margaret's eyes glanced at the clock, and she realized she was already running behind schedule. Even if she left now, she wouldn't have time to finish her lesson plan for the end of the week, so she'd have to squeeze that in between something. "I will see you both sometime tonight." And with that, Mary Margaret dipped out of the apartment and Rosie frowned.

"She's so weird sometimes." The teenager mused, taking a bite out of her banana. "I was kinda rooting for her and David."

Emma laughed, shaking her head as she rounded the island. "Something tells me she's still plenty hung up on David."

"How does it work to get picked up from school early?" Rosie tilted her head, her eyes squinted in contemplation as she tore off another piece of banana, lazily mashing it in her mouth.

"Uh, well, usually there's a list of names that the office has of anyone who's allowed to pick a kid up. You just get signed out after that." Emma shrugged, though she found it odd Rosie didn't know how it worked for herself. Even if she'd never been signed out early, certainly another one of her peers had in the twelve years she'd been attending school.

"Can you pick me up early today?" Emma should've seen it coming, really she should've, but it still blinded her like headlights on a backroad at midnight. Every time she accepted how far she'd let Rosie Finch into her heart, she was reminded of how much there was to lose now; how many people she would inevitably hurt when it all became too much and she fled like she always does — like everyone expects her to.

"Why?" Emma questioned, attempting to not draw attention toward her flushed cheeks. Sometimes, she didn't know if her decision to stayed in Storybrooke was more for Henry, or Rosie.

Rosie shrugged, "I've never left early before." It was simple, and Emma could understand wanting to do something just because you could. It was the act of recognizing your own autonomy. "And, Henry thinks this curse keeps us in routines, right? Nobody ever leaves Storybrooke, because the curse doesn't let us even consider leaving at all." Rosie glanced at Emma, trying to assure the blonde was following. When Emma gave a nod, Rosie let out a soft breath.

"When Regina adopted Henry, she left Storybrooke. Henry's always thought that it was him that changed things, but — if he's right about all of this — I think my body started breaking down the curse before she even got back to town. I don't have a single memory from before I was seven years old, but Mary Margaret has these sort of fragments... like altered versions of things that happened. Maybe that's just because I was a kid when this all hypothetically happened, I don't know. Regardless, the next thing that changed was him coming back with her. That's when I got my tent. And after that things remained relatively the same for ten years. Something is happening, but if we admit that to Henry, he'll run rampant through the streets chanting kill the queen."

"Our own operation." Emma nodded, understanding where Rosie was going with this, though she couldn't help but wonder how long the teenager had been thinking this up. It was certainly elaborate.

Rosie grimaced, her nose scrunching. "Ew, I'm not a ten-year-old boy, Emma. I'm not running an operation anymore than you're the daughter of Disney characters. We're just... exploring a controlled experiment to combat Henry's ridiculous narrative." Rosie nodded, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. Emma quirked a single eyebrow. "Pick me up from school early, I can go check my tent, see if there are any more holes. If nothing changes, I find something else to change. If nothing happens again, we both have to promise to stop subconsciously believing magic is real and I'm — me, Ella Rose, an actual real person — actually cursed."

"I'll try my best, kid, alright? If I'm not there by twelve, I got tied up at work." Emma promised, and Rosie nodded acceptingly. She took one last bite of her banana before she sprung from the stool, racing up the stairs to find a recycled outfit from Emma. She desperately needed to go shopping for her own clothes. The urge and desire to do so was finally weighing on her.

— 🕊️—

enchanted forest
(thirty-one years ago)

Eva Rose stomped her little feet, and Rosetta sighed, knowing what was to come. Her girl was as sweet and delicate as rose petals, yes, but she possessed a rather sharp anger when the cards aligned just right. Unfortunately for Rosetta, she'd been off her game and Rosie had known from the moment they began their magic lessons that morning.

"I do not want that one!" The child melted down, her head thrown back in theatrical dramatics as she forced crocodile tears to her eyes. Rosetta's pricked her fingers on many straggly thorns before, but Rosie's anger stings far worse. She's soft as dewy petals, but sharp as hidden thorns. Rosetta appreciates the theatrics regardless of their initial sting, and as she stands by the closet, she tries to hide her smirk.

"You can have the other one tomorrow, petal. For tonight, we have what we have." Rosetta could appreciate a young woman being passionate about her own expression and identity, but bickering with a four-year-old about laundry was not something she'd do. Regardless if said four-year-old was a royal princess.

"No!" Rosie huffed again, though Rosetta had been prepared for another defensive retort. It wouldn't truly be a Rosie meltdown without some edge of stubbornness. What Rosetta did not expect, was the dress in her hands to change, to become the one that should've been stashed away in the basket by the door so she could take it out to wash tomorrow. Magic lessons in the morning had never negated general teachings in the cottage, Rosetta had always encouraged learning the common way and mastering it, but it seems the child's finally realized she can still do magic even when they're not practicing in the garden.

Rosetta changed the nightdress between her fingers back to its original shade of blue, but before she could seal the spell for the night, Rosie had turned it pink again. "I want pink, Etta!"

"Pink needs to be cleaned, petal." The fairy waved her hand, undoing the spell that had initially cleaned the expensive fabric. The dress was riddled with wrinkles and dirt, because no matter how many times Rosetta warned Rosie against wandering outside in her sleep clothes, she was always chasing anything she thought resembled a shooting star through her window. "Magic is fun, but we cannot just change whatever we'd like. Magic always comes with a price sweetheart. Sometimes that price is being sleepy after practicing, or having to say goodbye to someone you love, or getting very very sick, but right now that price is you must go retrieve your blue dress from the basket. Pink needs to be done in the wash."

"But mother gave me it! I want this one, Etta!" The crocodile tears weren't exaggerated anymore, and Rosie's nose twitched with stinging emotion as she stared at Rosetta.

The fairy sighed, but not did wave her hand again. It had been a while since they'd last arranged a greeting in the village or a meeting at the cottage. If they did the latter, only one could sneak away at a time, and it was not Rosie's mother the last time they'd successfully engaged. "If you must wear the dress, it'll be like this. Your magic is special because it is rare, Eva Rose. It is no longer rare if you do everything with it. Tomorrow your bedding will need tending, that is the natural consequence of going to sleep in a dirty dress when you have a clean one to wear. Do you still want to make this choice?"

Rosie nodded with teary eyes, desperately raising her arms for Rosetta to help her undress. "Very well. Consequences are not always a bad thing, they're simply what follows after an action. Do you feel good about your decision? And having to do the laundry tomorrow?"

Rosie nodded, tiny hands wiping at her cheeks. "Then there is no need to keep that frown, my love. Even if your mother is far, having that dress at all keeps you close to her." Rosetta dressed the child fondly, picking her up once the nightdress fell into place the right way. "Now, it is time to sleep. Rest your eyes, petal."

— 🕊️—

storybrooke, maine
(present)

Ella Rose twiddled her thumbs as she sat in her fourth period biology class, there was quiet chatter around her, a test tube and a pipette in front of her, but her eyes only watched the clock. It was three minutes to twelve now, and she's not sure what's supposed to happen when Emma's here to pick her up, but she doesn't think it's supposed to be silence.

None of her peers had ever left early, in fact, the only person who ever had is Henry — but Regina always just barges into Mary Margaret's class and takes him herself. If the curse is real, Rosie supposes none of her classmates have reason to leave early, nor do their parents have reason to pick them up early. They have no desire for vacation, for a break, no sense of acknowledgment that they even really like what they do at all. Rosie knows she was in that state for a while, and she can't really remember specifically when it stopped, when one day she wanted something for the first time. It's been happening a lot recently, but she almost wishes it would happen more.

"Ella Finch to the office. Ella Finch to the office." A loud voice cut through the speakers in the room, and all eyes turned to Rosie in confusion before the narrowed gazes trailed away and everyone moved on from the abnormality. Weird. Rosie noted.

Regardless, she eagerly shoved her notebook into her backpack, pulling the safety goggles off of her head. She didn't say goodbye to the twins in her class that smiled at her kindly sometimes, nor did she say goodbye to Mr. Litman who barely glanced at the door as she left.

She glanced into Mary Margaret's classroom as she passed, spotting Henry at his desk with his head down; typical. The kid was unbelievably smart, Rosie knew it, Miss Blanchard knew it, but he was so absorbed in his imagination he never let that show at school. He used to, Rosie remembers honor roll breakfast pictures on the fridge and celebratory cupcakes on the counter, but not anymore. This needed to work, to definitively prove one way or another, because Henry was losing himself to the hypothetical of it all.

She met Emma in the office, grinning widely as she waved. She didn't so much as glance at the receptionist, strolling right through the front entrance with a breath of relief. "I didn't explode, so we're already off to an impeccable start."

"Is it everything you thought it would be?" Emma laughed, mindlessly following Rosie down the street. She assumed the teenager was going back to the tent, neither of them knowing how long it took for a hole to supposed open after anything changed.

"Not really." Rosie shrugged, "It's kind of anticlimactic."

Emma scoffed, "The feeling is better when you're actually looking forward to something." She assured and Rosie could assume that was true, but she'd never had anything to anticipate. No birthday parties, no Christmas parties, no holiday parades, or family vacations. The most exciting thing that happened to her was having cake after Henry's birthday once a year.

"I've gotta get back to the station, kid. You coming?" Emma asked, figuring she'd been away for long enough. She hadn't even clocked out, it didn't matter to her what Graham thought of her absence right now.

Rosie shook her head, "All of this has been doing my head in. I haven't spent an afternoon with Henry in a while, I'm gonna see what treats Regina has hidden in the freezer and try to bribe my way into his good graces again. He's been weird, and I can't help but feel like that's my fault because I'm going crazy and he can tell. But, I'll see you tonight!"

"Alright, kid, just... be safe." Emma hadn't had any problem letting Rosie go off on her own before, but the more time she spent with the kid, the more she realized Rosie was just a teenager thrown head first into adulthood. Regina treated her like a disposable second parent, Granny — while never being an active contributor — never protested when Rosie worked far more hours than any child ever should've, and Mr. Gold just seemed to be interested in her as a spectacle. Emma couldn't make sense of that relationship even if she tried.

Rosie nodded, already heading down the path behind Granny's, disappearing into the woods whilst Emma returned to the station. The only thing on the blonde mind was she definitely would've preferred being with Rosie, even with whatever physical exertion that entailed.

Rosie ducked beneath branches, grinning softly as she hadn't even realized she'd missed the feeling of being back in the woods. Any thought of the woods had been partnered with fear since they'd found David Nolan unconscious beside the creek, but as she glanced around, it felt like home. More of a home than Mary Margaret's apartment, and that made no sense to Rosie, but as she trekked deeper into the greenery, it just felt right that twigs snapped beneath her feet.

She smiled softly when a glimpse of red blurred in her vision just behind another wilting branch and brittle brushes. Fall wasn't kind to the forests furniture, it turned leaves brown and bushes to skeletons until spring, and Rosie still found no appreciation for it as she pulled her sleeves over her hands.

Rosie gasped as she saw the tent, finally pushing through enough branches to get to her former campsite. It hadn't been this overgrown a week ago, and while growth rates of shrubbery and trees wasn't something she was well versed in, it definitely wasn't normal for full bushes to grow so quick.

There were multiple holes in the tents red lining, the black wiring that held everything upright bared for blue eyes to scrutinize. There were more holes now then their had been, but it wasn't just todays events that had changed something. Moving in with Mary Margaret changed something. Letting Emma bear some of her problems changed something. Not blindly jumping for Henry Mills anymore changed something. Rosie can only assume every small thing had been another hole to her tent, and she wasn't sure how much more it could take before it crumbled. What happened then?

Rosie doesn't think she wants to find out.

— 🕊️ —

Rosie threw her backpack down onto the floor by the door as she came into Mary Margaret's apartment, the sun already behind the clouds. She was beyond exhausted, and her feet were dirty from stomping through dirt.

Emma was sitting at the island alone, the light in Mary Margaret's bedroom off. Rosie didn't think anything of it, glancing at the clock on the wall that told her it was after ten o'clock. She hadn't come straight back after leaving the Mills residence, but Emma didn't have to question where she'd gone.

"Stealing is wrong." She blurted. Emma's eyes narrowed. "Stealing is wrong, but I took Regina's necklace from the counter in her master bathroom, and there's another hole in the tent, Emma. Another hole! I've never stolen before." The teenager paled, and Emma didn't know whether to laugh or dwell on the glazed over fact that holes were seemingly appearing in the tents lining left and right. That couldn't just be chalked up to coincidence. That was admittedly weird and alarming. But Emma had to be the level-headed adult here, so she couldn't let herself fall down that tangent even if Rosie was already there. "She's gonna have me arrested. Oh god, you're going to arrest me."

"First of all, I'd make Graham do it. Second of all, nobody is getting arrested, and definitely not over a necklace." Emma mused, smiling softly. Rosie didn't look convinced, anxiety eating at her features more and more by the minute. "Do you feel any different?"

"No." Rosie shook her head, her eyes wide. She hadn't expected her little experiment to prove useful, and especially not within the same day. "No, I feel the same."

"Well, then we conduct more controlled experiments until we see a change in something. We still don't know what we're looking for when a hole appears. Just relax." Emma assured and Rosie nodded, swallowing a gasp of air. "Why did you even steal her necklace of all things?"

"I wasn't thinking! Henry had a headache, she keeps the medicine in her bathroom and it was on the counter and then one thing led to another and I had the necklace." Rosie gnawed at her bottom lip. "Does that make me a bad person?"

"No." Emma shook her head adamantly. "You might not be ten, but you're still a kid, Rosie. You have to make mistakes to learn anything in life, and now you know what a horrible feeling it is to steal." Emma knows this is the closest to parenting she's ever come, yet she doesn't feel as disgusted as she'd thought she would.

"Never doing that again." Rosie grimaced, and Emma laughed.

"Your every parent's best dream." Emma laughed, "Did the first controlled experiment not work?"

"No, it did!" Rosie shook her head, realizing in her confession of guilt she'd left out the part where the tent was basically crumbling to pieces. "Emma, the entire thing is barely even standing anymore. But, I've changed more about my life in the last week than I have in the last ten years. So it makes sense, right? A hole for every change, not just the big ones. Getting a job at Mr. Gold's, changing my hours at Granny's, actually using my card instead of just whatever tips I brought in..."

"Henry would probably say this makes you the Beast and Belle's daughter." Emma sighed, and although Rosie was still certain she didn't want to drag Henry into this side experiment prematurely, her lips curled upward at the admission.

"Red rose, red cottage, red tent. Magical falling petals, magical appearing holes... I'll add it to my list." Rosie nodded her head, though a pang of disappointment shot through her. In all of the townspeople Henry had assigned characters, there had never been a Beast nor Belle. Just another dead end she didn't even know she was trying to avoid.

"You have a list now?" Emma snorted, but her eyes softened when she recognized the traumatized yearing in Rosie's expression. It seemed like the teenager was deteriorating by the day, realizing just how much she had to miss and mourn. Still, Emma had a feeling Rosie didn't want her getting all serious and articulate with her advice.

Rosie nodded curtly, "I zoned off in class before you picked me up, had this weird daydream about a blue dress and a pink dress. Sleeping Beauty's name was originally Briar Rose. Eva Rose, Ella Rose, Briar Rose."

"Alright, then what about David?" Emma nodded along to Rosie's logic, because at least it had more physical evidence than Henry's 'because he's old' reasoning that he supplied more times than he didn't.

"No," Rosie shook her head, "David, James, whatever his name is, I'm nothing like him. I analyzed every story in that book, and every movie adaptation Henry's shown me, and Prince Charming is definitely not my father."

"But he's mine?!" Emma's head reared back, her mouth hung open in shock. There was amusement flaming in her eyes, and Rosie's sleep-filled gaze matched as brightly as it could manage.

"Well, I'd admit you're rather charming, but I think it'd go to your head, so we'll scratch that." Emma jutted her foot out, and Rosie pretended not to wince at the blow to her shin. "David's whole thing in Henry's book is that he'll always find Snow White. Firstly, you're an ex-bail bondsman turned deputy. Secondly, you hyper-fixated on finding your parents throughout your entire childhood. And, you're not as pessimistic and gloomy as you think you are."

Emma scoffed, only because she couldn't argue against Rosie's explanation. Had anyone else unwoven her walls like that, she'd have lost it, stormed out and probably never returned out of heart crushing mortification, but with Rosie... she just felt seen.

"And, if we want to go down this path. Doesn't that make me your big sister. If Eva Rose is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, born seven years before the curse struck, that totally makes me your big sister!" A look of sheer excitement washed over Rosie's face, her hands clapping together as she laughed.

"Yeah, you're right, you and David have absolutely nothing in common." Emma nodded, pretending to be dismayed by the realization. Rosie giggled, shaking her head as she turned toward the refrigerator for water. "Sleeping Beauty was raised in a cottage with three fairies."

"I know, but I was trying to avoid cliche similarities. If I'm going to care about this, I need as short a list as possible. There's less to get my hopes up about that way." Rosie didn't see the small frown on Emma's face as she filled a glass with water, her mind wandering to the water bottle one of her peers had. It was pink. Rosie liked it, maybe even wanted her own. She didn't know. "There's pages missing out of her — my — story. The beginning of it, and the end of it. There are pages missing from yours too, and a couple corners missing on some pictures so if there was anything significant in them... we'll never know. But, Eva Rose is a princess. That narrows the list. It's definitely not Cinderella, or Snow White, and I'm thinking about ruling out Ariel just because red hair and red cottage with a red hair fairy feels very 'in a box'."

"You can scratch Tiana, too." Emma added, and Rosie narrowed her eyes.

"Helpful." Rosie scoffed, taking a sip of water before she yawned. "I'm going to bed." She announced, heading toward the bathroom to wash up before she collapsed on her side of the bed for the night.

Emma waved her off, but had no intentions of joining so soon. There was far too much on her mind to sleep, so she sat at the counter weighing her options between believing in magic and the impossible or trying to find just one solid explanation to debunk the whole thing all together.