Chapter Text
Sometimes I hate that I'm the truest believer.
Well, actually, that's a lie. But can you blame a guy? I'm eighteen, and not five minutes ago I thought I'd left Storybrooke behind and was heading out to start my own life. Instead, I've just woken up from what I'm pretty sure was my death.
I remember the headlights. The bright, blinding light. The car that ran my bike over, and then—
I shake my head. I'm shaking. My hands are shaking, actually, and I don't think it's only because they're small. I look around, tilting my head, frowning, because something is very wrong. This is my old room. Like, old old. The one I had when I was six.
I look down at my hands and groan out loud.
They're tiny.
Seriously. If this is what being the truest believer gets me, I'm getting tired of it. It's just issue after issue after issue. And does this mean I have to go through all of it again? The curse, Neverland, Pan, all of it?
Actually… the more I think about it, this might be the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm going to miss my Emma and my Regina with a passion — and god, my chest aches just thinking about it — but all the things I can fix. All the things I can stop.
I have to help Regina. I should probably start calling her mom again.
I finally look at the clock. 6:33.
Right. Okay. One thing at a time.
I push the covers off and slip out of bed. My feet don't reach the floor the way I expect them to, and I stumble a little catching myself on the nightstand. I head for my dresser, grab the first shirt and shorts I can find, and make my way to the bathroom. A shower. I still remember the pain — the sick crunch of it, the way the light swallowed everything — and my skin feels too tight, like the fear is trapped underneath it. A shower would help. It has to.
I have a hard time walking, hard time controlling my limbs at all, because of the size difference, but I manage to shower in under twenty minutes. I'm dressed and heading down the stairs in thirty.
I walk into the kitchen, and Regi— Mom is cooking breakfast.
Something in my chest cracks wide open. She's here. She's alive. She's standing right there, spatula in hand, hair up, completely unaware that she's the best thing I've ever seen.
I know I was a brat the first time around — I put her through hell, and I might not have put her through all of it yet, in this timeline — but I still rush over and wrap my arms around her legs. I'm a little mad, actually, that I'm short again and that's as high as I can reach, so I just hug her legs harder.
"Morning, Mom," I say as I pull away.
She turns toward me, and a surprised smile spreads across her face. "Well, good morning to you too," she says with a little laugh, ruffling my hair.
I make a face and fix it. Then I head over to the table and sit down, swinging my legs back and forth because they don't touch the ground. Mom goes back to cooking, and I finally give myself a minute to think.
Am I going to tell Mom and the others I time-traveled? Would that even be the best option? If I tell her — really tell her, everything — I could save us all so much pain. But I also know what knowing does to her. What it did to us. I remember the way she looked at me when she realized I knew. I don't know if I can do that to her again.
While I'm turning it over, Mom finishes the food and plates everything. She sets it on the table, and I smile when I see it's bacon and eggs.
"May I have some toast, please?" I ask with a grin.
Mom just chuckles. "Well, since you asked so nicely…" She goes and makes a few pieces. While she's doing that, I fill my plate. She's back a few minutes later and hands me four pieces of toast.
"Thank you," I say with a big smile.
She smiles back and sits down, starting to fill her own plate. I dig into the three pieces of bacon I grabbed and the pile of scrambled eggs. I gladly take the cup of orange juice she slides me with a small thank-you of my own.
And I watch her. She's taking a drink of her apple juice, and she's here, and she's okay, and she's my mom, and—
I'm going to tell her. I have to.
"Hey, Mom," I say. "I time-traveled. This morning. I was eighteen."
She lowers her glass slowly. "Henry—"
"I know you're the Evil Queen." I hold up my fingers around the word evil — sarcastic, I know, but I don't know how else to say it. "And I know who my birth mother is."
The moment it registers, Mom does a spit take. Apple juice goes everywhere — some of it even out her nose — and she's coughing, hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
I feel kind of bad. I hop off the chair, grab a paper towel, and hand it to her.
She takes it. But she's not looking at the mess. She's looking at me, and her face has gone pale, and underneath the shock there's something worse: fear. Real fear. The kind I've seen on her before — the kind she only gets when she thinks she's about to lose me.
So I climb back up and hug her as best I can, since she's sitting down and I'm, you know, six, and I press my face into her shoulder and whisper the thing she needs to hear.
"I love you. And you are still my mother. You're a great mother. None of that changes. Okay?"
She's frozen. I can feel how still she's gone, the way she's barely breathing. I keep holding on, keep my arms tight around her, and I whisper it again, because I'm not sure she heard me the first time: "You're my mom. That doesn't change."
That breaks her out of it. Her arms come up, and she hugs me back — hard, hard enough that it aches, hard enough that I know she's holding on like I might disappear.
We stay like that for a long time. A few minutes, maybe more. I let her hold me, because she needs to, and because honestly I need her to too.
Finally she pulls me back, her hands on my shoulders, and her eyes are red but her voice is steady. "As exciting as that is — and we are definitely talking about it, Henry, soon — you are a growing boy and you need to eat."
She's deflecting. I know her well enough to know that. But she's right, too. I'm in the body of my six-year-old self, which means I have to grow all over again, which means I need the calories. So I climb back into my chair and pick up my fork.
But I watch her the whole time, because she hasn't touched her own plate, and her hands are shaking, and I know this conversation isn't over.
It's barely started.