Chapter 42: Alliances
Emma Swan bit her nails when she was nervous.
It was her dirtiest secret. Well, one of them. But Emma liked to look like she was fearless. Brave. Out of all the living breathing Disney characters, she wanted to know why she hadn't met Merida yet? Because Merida was cool.
Unlike her mother. Snow freaking White.
She had lost all respect for her mother today.
Kicking out Henry because of his sexuality. Seriously?
She guessed she shouldn't have been that surprised. The kicking out part. She had figured out the Henry was gay bit a long time ago. It wasn't that big of a shock. The guy stared at Hook's derriere almost as much as Emma.
Thinking of Hook's butt made Emma blush.
She knew she shouldn't be thinking about the pirate. He had made himself scarce these past few days, and it wasn't like they had a relationship or anything.
Emma wasn't one for relationships. She had learned that the hard way with Henry's father.
God what was she thinking. Jumping on the back of a motorcycle living a vagabond life. God knows, he got tired of it.
She still remembered when he left her, so sudden. And he left his bike too. She sold it. Traded it in for her bug. She always hoped he come back to ask about it, but he never did.
Odd.
Yeah, the whole relationship was odd.
Which was why she avoided them. Despite what she told Mary Margret, she never experimented because, well, quite honestly Emma wasn't a relationship girl—male or female.
She was just trying to keep her own shit together and that was really hard to do.
And now her son was gone somewhere alone, and probably feeling quite miserable.
She had to find Henry. She needed to tell him everything was going to be okay, and that she'd give Mary Margret a knuckle sandwich if he wanted her too.
She was the police. It would be completely sanctioned, she told herself. Though she didn't believe it.
Really, why did her mother do that?
She still had such a hard time rationalizing Mary Margret as her mother. Used to it was because she was her dorky best friend. Yes, Emma said dorky. Because up until Mary Margret got her Enchanted Forest memories back, she was kind of a bit geeky and sort of pathetic. She suppose Regina did that on purpose. Because truly who would wear that many cardigans and Henry had a point about the hair, but she was a good person. Freaky cat statues and David obsession aside.
And even when Emma found out she was her long lost mother; there were shades of that caring best friend she met when she first came to Storybrooke. Of course, the supposed mandated family dinners were annoying and then Mary Margret's lack of putting a sock on the door when she and David want to get on in the apartment didn't help either.
But she was still her friend. Emma thought she knew her to be a bighearted person, until tonight.
God. If ever was there time to get drunk it was now, except she couldn't get drunk because she had to think of the kid, and find him. But everywhere she looked he wasn't there.
And being the only police officer in town, she really didn't have a lot of resources. Okay, she had Ruby who volunteered mainly because Henry was her best customer and she had that nose. But most of Storybrooke was useless. She ignored the dwarves, because they were her mother's friends and she wanted nothing to do with her mother. And really, with Grumpy, that would probably cause more harm than good (if he wasn't still plastered in jail which she was pretty sure he was because she had arrested him just last night).
The person she should call was Regina.
Emma stared at her phone.
She really didn't want to call her archenemy and Henry's official legal guardian. She could only imagine what Regina would do to her mother, and right now she really didn't know if she'd stop Regina from tormenting her mother.
Of course she would, Emma told herself.
But she knew that Henry had to be hurting. And Emma knew how well it felt being rejected. She had spent her entire childhood lost. Foster home to foster home. Group home to group home. Ex somethings that knock you up and leave you with nothing but a battered motorbike.
It wasn't the sort of feeling you wanted to feel.
It sucked.
Emma was used to it though. It was her normal. She got used to having cold sesame noodles for her birthday, until the kid showed up.
Now the kid was feeling how she felt.
She needed to call Regina, as much as it pained her to say. She'd be able to find Henry and he needed to be found. She was sure…
Her phone started ringing: Henry!
The kid sounded down. Way more down than Emma had ever heard him. Henry had always the bright spot of optimism in Emma's life. It pained him to hear him like this. She tried to reassure him. Tell him that she didn't give a rat's ass about his sexuality and tell him that they were still on with their movie marathon tonight.
She totally was in the mood to watch some dumb horror movies, she needed to get her mind off of things. And maybe watching some dumb evil leprechaun get it would improve her mood.
Thank God, horror movies weren't real. The last thing she wanted to do was become Storybrooke's unofficial vampire or worse leprechaun slayer—heaven forbid.
When she mentioned that to Henry he laughed.
She was glad that something she said brightened up his mood. She offered to pick him up, and that's when he became upset again. "I don't know where I am, Emma?"
"You don't know where you are?"
He mentioned something about being in the woods and then Emma, unbeknownst to her, muttered her father's famous line about finding people and then…and then the line went dead.
And Emma could feel herself shaking.
She didn't shake. She never shook. Ever after the twentieth foster home. Even after Henry's father left her.
But she was shaking now.
"Emma?"
Ruby.
The only person in this town who had been helping her. She really needed to put a search party together.
"Woods." Emma said it was then she noticed Archie with Pongo. "Dr. Hooper?"
"Ruby said Henry's missing," The former cricket said. "Do you need any help?"
"Do I ever." Emma said.
Though really what good was a waitress and shrink going to give her. Well, Ruby might be able to smell Henry out. But Archie?
Well, he was still helping. She knew though, she really knew who she should call.
"Swan." Barked a voice Emma knew so well.
And you speak of the devil…
Regina looked pissed. She looked like she had been dressed to go to court. She probably had. She had been staying out of town to deal with the Moe French situation, a situation that Emma was utterly confused about and she was suppose to be the sheriff.
No one would tell her anything. And when she called Augusta to say that she had suspicion that Moe was involved in nefarious things at Storybrooke and if they could please transfer him back, she was laughed at and told a number of things that would require an explanation from Gold.
But Gold had bailed town as well as his girlfriend and her kid. Normally, Emma would be more suspicious about the entire thing, but because of everything else in the world (meaning her life) falling apart she was didn't really pay that much attention to it. That and she was suppose to concentrate on the Moe situation. But Regina had apparently decided to return early and she looked pissed.
Like poison apple ready pissed.
Emma sighed, "I thought you were handling the Moe French thing."
"I got a call from Henry." Regina said. "What the hell did you and your happy little family do to him?
Emma sighed. "Regina, right now is not the time. We have to find him."
"You're right. But I need to find him, not you."
"Regina," Emma sighed sounding exasperated. "Now is…"
"My son rarely calls me crying." Regina interrupted. "Swan, I know that either you or your family fucked things up. So please don't try to argue."
Emma winced; Regina rarely dropped the f bomb. She might say some nasty things but she rarely cursed, at least openly. "Henry called you?"
"He did," Regina crossed her arms. "What did you do to him?"
Emma sighed. "There's no time, Regina. We need to find him, tell him that things are going to be okay."
"Swan, what is going on?"
Emma bit her lip. Honestly, telling Regina what was going on was probably the right thing to do, but given the situation she was in no need of an emotional blow up right now. Emma didn't know how Regina was going to react. While she predicted that Regina would be a lot more accepting to Henry's sexuality than Mary Margret and David, she really didn't know.
She didn't expect her parents to be so adverse to the idea for one thing. She understood that the Enchanted Forest, might've not had their fair share of LGBT individuals, but Mary Margret was a teacher. Animals befriended her and everyone in town seemed to like her.
Of course, Emma knew nothing of the Enchanted Forest and she was starting to be glad that she knew nothing about the place.
"Swan." Regina said again.
"Emma," This time it was Archie. "We really need to find Henry. I know that you and Regina have your differences, differences that I'll be more to help you with if you make an appointment, but Henry?"
"Oh yeah," Emma said. "We need to find Henry, Regina. We'll talk later."
Emma then started walking away to go to the office to think of a plan or something—god knows, she really didn't know what to do and it wasn't her lack of experience as a fairytale police officer talking there—when Regina grabbed her arm. "Wait! I can help."
"Help?" Emma was utterly confused.
"Well, not help you. Help Henry. I can help find him?"
Now Emma was really interested. But time was the essence, looking at Archie and Ruby she said. "Ruby, can you start seeing if you can catch Henry's scent? Archie you and Pongo can go with her."
They nodded. As soon as they left, Regina took this opportunity to trash them. "Seriously, those two and that dog, Swan? Is that the best you can do."
"They offered to help." It wasn't like Mary Margret and David were of any use right now. It also wasn't like Gold or anyone who might actually have some knowledge of finding Henry was actually home to help her either. Which she pointed out Regina.
The brunette rolled her eyes as she grabbed Emma and a second later she found herself in Henry's bedroom at Regina's house.
It was like a shrine to him. Completely untouched since the last time he left. Creepy. Though to Regina's credit, Emma really didn't touch Henry's things when he wasn't at her parents house either.
God, she was going to have to find a new place. Unless Mary Margret got a clue, which she sort of doubted based off of how great those Utah camps crap was.
She really wished she could get drunk tonight.
"Swan."
And now she had to talk to Regina again. "What, Regina? Are you going to berate me for hurting Henry."
"Did you hurt Henry?" Regina asked. There was something in her eyes that signaled to Emma that she really didn't believe that Emma played a role in this. Or at least that's what Emma hoped Regina's question signaled. Unless she was completely horrible at reading people's expressions.
Which she might be, come to think of it, she didn't realize her parents would be so heartless for one thing.
Surely, there had to be some reason for their actions besides, they needed someone to represent strong values and reproduce for their kingdom.
It seemed stupid.
They weren't even strongly religious. They didn't go to church on Christmas. Emma didn't see them giving anything up for lent. Or for that matter, they didn't worship any Enchanted Forest religion.
Emma wondered what sorts of religion were worshiped there? She hoped they didn't worship the fairies. Honestly, Blue had annoyed her ever since she took that parking spot away from her that day at Granny's and she heard some nasty business about how the nun had interfered in Grumpy's love life.
Not that she really cared about Grumpy's love life. Seriously, ew. It was just that if he was with his fairy or whoever, then Mary Margret wouldn't be pushing him on her. He probably also wouldn't be visiting the jail every night drunk either.
"Swan, I'll ask again. What did your mother do?"
"My mother?"
"Yes, your mother." Regina said pulling out one of Henry's shirts. It was one he wore fairly often to Granny's when Emma met him. It looked really nice on him, though Emma had to admit she often got annoyed when he wore it since he especially looked like his father in it.
"Now's not the time to fold laundry." Emma said.
Regina rolled her eyes. Emma noted that this reminded her of Henry. It was odd that he had taken some of Regina's traits and they weren't even related. She guessed it was because he had lived with the woman most of his life. But it was a little eerie. After all, Regina was the evil queen.
"I'm performing a tracking spell." Regina said. "Or will when we get to Gold's shop. The bastard should have a spare potion laying around that place somewhere. I can only hope I can find it. The damn place should be on Hoarders."
"Didn't you magic it to look that way?"
Regina gave Emma a pointed look. "There's so much crap in there it couldn't be organized. Personally, I'd throw out some of the real junk like those creepy puppets."
Emma had to agree as she took out the hand Regina held out for her. Those puppets were creepy.
It turned out that finding the potion Regina was looking for was easier said than done. Despite the fact that the place seemed to be a well candidate for that TV show that Regina was talking about, Gold seemed to organize things enough where he could find things and people couldn't. It was a pretty goo anti-shoplifter strategy. Emma almost wished he was there so they could just make a deal and get out of there and find Henry already.
It didn't help that Regina kept cursing about Gold every second she got. And here Emma thought they were attached at the hip.
"Why don't you call him?" She finally suggested.
Regina blinked at her for a second before she said. "That's not actually a bad idea, Swan."
She was shocked. She really was shocked. Regina thought that was a good idea? And she had Gold's number? The two had been hanging out with each other, but Emma didn't' expect the man to give his phone number to anyone except for his evil minions and maybe Belle.
He always told Emma to contact the shop if she wanted to talk to him.
But Regina had his cell and within a few minutes she walked into the backroom and came out with the shirt floating in mid air.
"Come on," She said. "Let's find Henry."