Beane Odette - Reawakened - A Once Upon A Time Tale

She put a hand on his shoulder and knelt down to him. She thought he would pull away and fight, but he didn’t. He buried his face in her chest, sobbing. It was unbearable. She felt him stiffen then, and his head came up. He was looking at something over her shoulder. She looked, too. It was the apple turnover.

— Where did you get that? — he asked.

— Regina gave it to me, — Emma said. — So what?

He sniffed the air.

— Is it apple?

— So?

He went to the counter and pushed it away.

— You can’t eat it, — he said. — It’s poison.

— What?

— Don’t you see? — Henry said. — The deal? It was all a trick. To get you to eat this. To get rid of you once and for all. This is exactly how she got rid of Snow White, except this time, you don’t have a Charming here to come wake you up.

It was terrible to hear him going down this path again. Archie had been right — he’d retreated into it. Her presence here was hurting him.

— Why would she do that after I told her I would go? — Emma asked.

— Because as long as you’re alive, wherever you are, you’re a threat.

— You have to stop thinking like this.

— BUT IT’S THE TRUTH! — he yelled. She had never heard him so loud.

Emma reached for the turnover.

— Fine, — she said. — I’ll prove it to you.

But when he saw what she was doing, Henry snatched the turnover before she could get it, and held it in front of his own mouth.

Like a threat.

— What are you doing? — Emma said.

— I’m sorry it’s come to this. You might not believe in the curse, or in me, — Henry said. — But I believe in you.

He took a big bite.

Same difference, Emma thought.

Either way, he’d know for sure.

She waited.

He chewed and swallowed.

— Do you see? — Emma said, after she thought that enough time had gone by. — You want some ice cream with that, or can we get back…

Before she could finish the sentence, Henry dropped to die floor.

She ran to him, grabbed his little shoulders, shook him.

— Henry? — she said. — Henry?

Panic gripped her after she took his pulse. He was not messing with her. Almost no heartbeat.

— Henry? — she cried again, her voice trembling.

One thought kept circling her mind: This is not happening.

— Henry! — she cried. — Henry!

The hospital, screaming, frantic cries. Dr. Whale’s harried questions.

More doctors. Trying to stabilize Henry.

Tears.

Emma ran alongside the gurney, her eyes full of tears, as they carted her son into the ER. She was unable to think. She could barely answer their questions. She tried to tell Dr. Whale about the turnover, to tell him that Henry had been poisoned, but none of it made sense, none of it sounded right. She sounded like a raving lunatic, and Dr. Whale insisted that Henry had not been poisoned. He could find no evidence.

— Is anything different? — Whale said. — You have to think, Emma. What’s happened in the last few hours?

Frustrated, she grabbed Henry’s backpack from the gurney, pulled it, and began riffling through its contents, looking for any ideas. Soon, however, the backpack spilled all over the floor, and Henry’s things were everywhere. Emma, tears in her eyes, began to look around.

— I don’t know, — she said. — I don’t know.

Whale, frustrated also, went back to Henry.

And just then, Emma saw Henry’s book.

Magic, she thought. It’s not poison. It’s magic.

She remembered Henry’s words from that first day:

— All the stories in this book actually happened.

She touched the book. And as she did, she remembered… more.

She remembered…

Her mother, handing her to her father.

Her father, fighting the Queen’s men as he held her.

The wardrobe, and being gently set inside.

The woods, waking up… with August.

Emma blinked as the images flashed over her.

All of her life, Emma had been a skeptic. She’d been the person who poked holes in other people’s logic, the person who saw through the illusions that trapped everyone else. It was what made her good at her job, and it was what had gotten her into (and out of) so much trouble along the way. This time, though, it was different. This time, she’d been the one living in a dream world. Emma, the realist, had been utterly wrong.

It's all real. All of it is real.

All of it.

The gurney and the team of doctors reached a set of doors, and as they pushed Henry through, down the hall, they all heard a withering shriek. Everyone stopped and looked up. Regina, in a panic, was running toward him.

— My son! — she cried.

Emma’s eyes narrowed. If it was real, than Regina was behind it all. And if Regina was behind it all, it was time to kill Regina.

— You did this, — she said, grabbing the woman by the collar and pushing her into a door. The door gave way, and the two of them ended up inside a storage closet. Regina didn’t know what had hit her.

— What in the hell are you…

Emma punched her. The rage of the last weeks flowed through her shoulder and her fist as she struck the blow, and Regina’s head banged back into a shelf. She tried to hit Emma back, but she wasn’t fast enough. Emma grabbed Regina’s arm and pushed her again, back into the shelf.

— Stop this, — Regina sputtered. — My son is…

— Your son is sick. Because of you, — spat Emma. — That apple turnover you gave me? Henry ate it

Regina’s eyes showed Emma a new kind of terror. Something she’d never seen, quite honestly.

— What? — said Regina, wilting before her.

Emma stared back at her, letting the truth sink in.

— It was… it was meant for… you. — Regina barely got the words out. Emma was holding her up, and she guessed that Regina would probably fall if she let go.

— It’s true, isn’t it?

— What are you talking about?

Emma slammed her against the shelf one more time.

— It’s true, isn’t it?

Now Regina understood.

— Yes, — she said. — It is.

— Why would you do this? — Emma cried. — I was leaving town. Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? It would have been okay!

Regina shook her head.

— Because as long as you’re alive, Henry will never be mine, — she said.

— He’s not going to be anyone’s unless you fix this, — Emma said. — Wake him up. Turn off the magic.

— I can’t, — Regina said, shaking her head.

— Why not?

— That was the last of the magic in this world, — Regina said. — It was supposed to put you to sleep. That would have been it.

— So what’s it going to do to him? — Emma asked.

— I don’t know, — Regina said. — Magic here is unpredictable.

Emma stared.

— So he could die?

— Yes, — Regina said. — Yes.

— Then what do we do, Regina?

Regina straightened up as well, nodding, thinking it through.

— We need help, — she said. — There is one other person in this town who knows about this. Who knows about magic.

Emma knew who she meant. There was only one possibility.

— Mr. Gold, — she said.

Regina nodded.

— Actually, — she said, — he usually goes by Rumplestiltskin.

— Can we talk?

Mary Margaret looked up toward the voice. She had a fresh cup of coffee in her hand, and she nearly spilled it when she saw David coming toward her. He was looking contrite, although that didn’t mean anything. She was tired of having a man who had to apologize for himself. All the time.

— I don’t think there’s anything left to say, — she said. She went toward her car.