Chapter 12: Globe Trotting Detective
Nancy Drew probably never had to ride in coach. Also, Nancy never had to ride in planes with her estranged mother and the quasi murderer of her son.
All in the name of justice, Emma told herself as she asked the flight attendant for a Guinness—because when going to the U.K….wait, wasn't Guinness an Irish thing?
Emma didn't care the past couple of days had been sort of hard to get through. And as much as she might've hated it that she was stuck between Mary Margret and Cora in coach, she'd get through it.
The beer helped—somewhat.
Though, it didn't help the fact that she was in a hellish situation. She was supposed to be grieving right now, not doing whatever this was. But a part of her, well, thought that maybe if she could get a hold of Pan and get his heart…
She was being ridiculous.
Her son was dead.
And nothing could change that. All she could do was try to save Just Harry. Who apparently was Gold and Cora's son.
The kid didn't look evil, Emma thought to herself. But Gold and Cora. God, did she feel sorry for what that kid had to endure at Christmas.
And she felt he needed someone supportive with him, because she had a feeling that his parents weren't exactly civil with each other. And someone needed to be rational party to arrest Pan.
Could she arrest Pan though? There might be a jurisdictional issue or something there, but Emma really didn't care.
Besides, Gold would probably help her when he realized that Cora had Pan put a hit on Just Harry.
She hoped.
She also wondered why Gold went to England. Yes, she got that his accent was Scottish and Scotland was part of the U.K., but that was a Regina invention.
Emma frowned as she thought about English accents. It brought back memories of him, Henry's father.
Which made her think of Henry.
She was going to get smashed on this plane.
At least Mary Margret wasn't staring at her, trying to psychoanalyze her. Though, that sort of upset Emma at the same time. She was starting to think that something was wrong with Mary Margret, she hadn't been trying to pry (as much) in Emma's life and she had a feeling that things weren't exactly peachy between her and her father.
In fact, her mother had basically ordered her father to go home, and Emma assumed there was a big knock out drag out about it because her father had a very sullen look on his face when he dropped her mother off at the town line this morning.
"He'll get over it." Snow White said.
Emma just shook her head. She really sometimes wondered about her parents. Back when she thought her mother was her b.f.f., Mary Margret, she got annoyed with what a tool David Nolan was. When he regained his Charming memories, it appeared that he was regaining some backbone for a while there, but whatever backbone it was seemed to have disappeared and he just nodded and did what her mother said.
So, in a weird way she was almost glad they were bickering. If it would've been a good sort of bickering. Instead, her mother seemed almost as disgusted with Charming and she did with Cora.
Oh, Cora.
Cora had been…well, weird. She seemed to actually care for Just Harry which Emma hadn't expected. And she was a horrible magic teacher that was something both Mary Margret and Emma seemed to agree on. Thank God, Mary Margret could kind of tell Emma what to do so that they could brew those potions correctly—since Emma was the only one who could currently use her magic.
Not that Mary Margret knew how to use magic, she had been a teacher in for twenty-eight years though. So, Emma guessed that's what made her qualified enough to get Emma to make a decent memory potion to leave the town—she didn't have to bother with a blood globe to find the boy thanks to the fact that she was a cop and it wasn't like Gold had gone off the grid with his credit card.
Seriously, he was staying in one of the more posh parts of London—no surprise, with all those fancy suits he wore.
Emma had no doubt that the boy (Just Harry) was there.
But why, oh why, did it have to be in London? And why, oh why, did she have to sit between Cora and her mother.
She really needed another beer.
Cora laughed.
"What?" Emma said.
"You don't act like a princess." Her number one prisoner said.
Emma shrugged. She always thought the whole royalty stuff was garbage, so she could really care less if Cora thought of her as a princess or not.
Cora laughed when Emma said this "Of course you would."
Emma really did not get what the woman's problem was. She didn't really say anything to reply to Cora's response; instead she decided to let her monologue it.
There was one person who wouldn't let her monologue it and that was Mary Margret. Who was just rolling her eyes and grumbling about how Cora needed to shut up. Emma noted that her mother had been extremely moody lately, perhaps she needed to offer her a Midol.
Though, right now she sort of wanted Cora to shut up too so she didn't say anything.
She had never been on a plane going overseas before. She just realized that. Other realms: yes. But Emma Swan had never been overseas. She had always wanted to go places when she was a kid. But it wasn't for the usual reasons. She didn't roam across the country because she was a free spirit like Neal had been—hell, Neal had traveled across the pond. No, Emma had always traveled because she wanted to find home.
And she still hadn't found it yet; maybe she'd never know where home was.
Somehow during this arguably deep introspection, she fell asleep and when she woke up she heard Mary Margret and Cora arguing.
Surprise, surprise.
"This is all your fault." Mary Margret snapped.
Emma inwardly groaned wondering what happened while she slept. Honestly, she should've handcuffed the two of them together.
But she didn't have anything to really arrest her mother for, except for being an idiot around Henry.
And there was that hole in her heart again.
It was never going to get better.
Emma thought about pressing the flight attendant button to order another drink. But given that it was now light outside and she could hear her ears popping, pus the fact that her bladder felt ridiculously full, she was pretty sure they were getting close to landing.
Damn it.
Because she really couldn't deal with Mary Margret and Cora's bickering.
Emma glared at them, "Can the two of you just shut up?"
"It's not my fault you're hung, Emma." Mary Margret snapped.
Seriously, if she didn't knock if off Emma was going to stuff a Midol down her throat. At least Cora had the common courtesy to just give her the evil glare—that wasn't saying much though.
"I'm not hung," Emma snapped even though she probably was—no, she wasn't hung over. She was just annoyed. "I just…I'd rather not be on this plane with the two of you."
"Well…" Cora began.
"You're still under arrest." Emma snapped. "The only reason you're even on this plane is because we have to find Just Harry before that creeper you hired harms him."
"I didn't exactly hire Pan," Cora said. "You can't hire that brat to do anything."
"You made a deal with him," Emma said. "And he has to pay you back. Unfortunately."
Cora sighed. "Yeah, I know. And I…"
"Don't even say it," Mary Margret said. "Apologies are useless at this point."
Pot calling kettle black, Emma thought as she strategically bit her tongue. Finally, after she was able to calm herself down enough she said, "I don't care. This is about saving Just Harry."
"His name, "Cora spit out. "Is Harry. Well, actually it's not. I'm going to change it. It's so un-regal."
Mary Margret snorted. "He's twelve-years-old. I doubt he's going to want to change his name to Reginald."
"Shut. Up." Cora responded back.
London, England
The thing about London that Emma first noticed, it rained a lot. Seriously, she should've brought a rain slicker with her. Her jacket was probably ruined by the time she had finally arrived at Gold's place.
It was apparently a very fancy place
Probably the sort of place that served tea. But didn't everywhere in England serve tea?
Apparently not.
Then again, most of her impressions of the U.K. had been from Mary Poppins and Jane Austen novels. Alas, there was no Colin Firth wearing breeches or Julie Andrews singing "A Spoon Full of Sugar".
Her childhood was ruined by an extremely smelly guy on the tube and the dump of a motel she was staying at.
Neal had made England seem so romantic, whimsical. Then again, Neal had made her feel and think about a lot of things that just weren't true.
"You seem pissed." Her mother had said earlier.
Emma blinked she was surprised Mary Margret even knew the word pissed. "It's raining," Emma replied. "And I don't know if I should trust you to stay alone with her."
"Really, Emma." Mary Margret said. "I can handle Cora."
Cora who was on the other side of their economy room glared at them. "I should be going with you!"
"Uh, no." Emma said. "You're still under arrest. And if I know Gold, he's probably going to want to kill you when he sees you, so this is for your own safety."
"You are rambling." Mary Margret said.
"I am not," Emma said. "I'm just stating the facts."
She was pissed though. This whole thing was absolutely ridiculous. Having to travel across the globe because Cora had the audacity to put a hit on her own son.
Emma could only imagine how the conversation with Gold was going to go. She'd be lucky if she came out of it unscathed. She hoped Belle was there. Something about the librarian sort of calmed him down (sort of).
She could only hope she could get someone to tell her what room he was in. She somehow didn't think the good old Ben Franklin trick was going to work in a London hotel (note to self, find out what the equivalent of a hundred dollars was in British money).
Or that it would even work at a place like this. God, it was fancy.
So she tried a different approach.
"Hi," She said to the clerk. "I'm here to see my friend, Mr. Gold. My name's Emma Swan."
Yeah, Mr. Gold as her friend. You could just laugh at that now.
The woman raised an eyebrow.
"What?" Emma said. "Are you going to call him or not? He told me to contact him here instead of his mobile because…well, he's a tourist. We were supposed to take one of those haunted tours on the buses. You know the one where you see where all the ghosts of Henry the VIII's wives supposedly are or whatever."
The clerk got annoyed with her babbling. Because finally the woman said, "I'll give Robert Gold a call."
Robert Gold? That was the name he was using. Seriously? Though, it did make sense with the letter "R" and he admittedly did look sort of a Robert. Though, she'd permanently think of Rumpelstiltskin or as just Gold.
"Thank you," Emma said.
The woman just nodded as she called the room. Emma tried to look at the keys she was pressing and was surprised when she clicked the penthouse.
Gold wasn't on a budget that was for sure. Well, she guessed when you could spin straw into gold checking into the penthouse wasn't that big of an expense.
"Miss," The clerk had hung up the phone.
"Oh, yes," Emma said.
"Mr. Gold will see you, he's in the penthouse. Just tell Nigel you're to see him."
Emma nodded, wondering just what Gold was up to as she walked towards the elevator. They were not friends by any means; she was wondering why the man was agreeing to see her.
Belle, she thought. It had to be Belle.
Or pure amusement.
But imagine to her surprised when the elevator to the penthouse opened that it was not Gold in an Armani suit waiting for her, but a man who she hadn't seen in almost twelve years.
"Neal?"