Chapter Text
Emma turned the key and opened the door of the apartment to see her roommate sprawled on the couch. Baelfire was typing on his laptop, as usual. "Happy birthday!" he said as she came in the door. "You're late," he added, glancing back down at the laptop.
Emma scowled. "Yeah, well, someone's got to work around here," she replied, peeling off her jacket.
"I work," objected Bae mildly, "but I get off at five like normal people."
Emma relented. "Yeah, I know. Sorry, Bae, I'm just in a crappy mood. The guy I was chasing was late for dinner, and then he flipped the entire contents of the table on me and tried to run. How was your date last night, anyway? Better than that, I hope."
"All right," said Bae, shrugging.
Emma was able to decode that as She wasn't certifiably insane, but she didn't know anything about what we're looking for. Bae had, she estimated, gone on dates with some of the flakiest women in Boston, trying to ascertain whether they knew anything about the curse. So far, the women who put "Fairy Tales" in their dating profiles appeared to be either narcissistic or detached from reality. Emma wondered which one last night's had been, but did not ask.
Bae sighed, ran a hand through his thick hair. "Never mind that. August sent you a postcard -- he's in Tahiti or something. I think he's planning on staying far away until everything goes down. And I got you a birthday cupcake."
Emma rolled her eyes. "You couldn't even make it a whole cake? Classy, Bae." She walked into the kitchen. The odds that Bae had not been fretting about her birthday all day were not good. She gave it ten seconds before he said something about the curse. Ten, nine, eight...
"This is the year, right?"
Seven seconds ahead of schedule. Emma said, "According to August, it's the year. Twenty-eighth year, Rumpelstiltskin said." She ignored, with the ease of long practice, Bae's reaction to the name of his father.
"But we don't even know where to go--"
"I imagine we've probably got the whole year. If nothing's happened in three hundred sixty-four days from now, then you can panic. Just knock it off for one minute so I can enjoy my birthday cupcake, okay?" She looked around. "Where is it, anyway?" She opened the fridge. "Oh. Huh. That actually doesn't look half bad." Her breath caught, just a little, at the blue star candle. She carried it to the table, found a match, and lit the candle.
"Make a wish," Bae said softly, "on the blue star."
She closed her eyes briefly and blew out the candle. Almost the second she did so, the doorbell rang. "Did you invite someone else to our little party?" Bae asked.
Emma frowned. "No, who else would I invite?" she asked, going to open the door. Who else, indeed, would know about the Enchanted Forest, would be welcome in their lives, would understand their purpose?
Standing there was a boy, perhaps about ten years old. "Uh," Emma said, "can I help you?"
"Are you Emma Swan?" he asked.
"Yeah. Who're you?"
"My name's Henry. I'm your son." He pushed past Emma into the apartment, stared bemusedly at Bae.
"Whoa!" Emma said, holding up her hands. "Hey, kid! Kid! I don't have a son! Where are your parents?"
"Ten years ago," the boy said, "did you give up a baby for adoption? That was me."
Bae drew in a sharp breath. "Give me a minute," Emma said, beating a hasty retreat to the bathroom. She heard, behind her, the kid asking Bae, "Are you my dad, then?" and Bae laughing: "No, definitely not, although I do know him --"
In the bathroom, she could still hear Bae and the kid murmuring in low voices. The kid. She'd thought -- she'd thought that she was done with him. She'd thought that piece of her life was over, wrapped up and given away --
"Emma!" Bae yelled. "Get out here!" Emma looked at the bathroom mirror, seeing her frown reflected. It wasn't like Bae to raise his voice, even when he was upset. She sighed, stepped out of the bathroom, looked at Bae and the kid. Bae gave him a little nudge towards Emma. "Show her what you showed me." His voice had an undertone of barely suppressed excitement.
The kid -- what was his name again, Henry, that was it -- eyed Bae suspiciously. He held out a large leather book to Emma. Once Upon a Time, Emma read on the cover. She raised her eyes to frown at Bae, who was regarding the book intently. Could this be -- She opened the book, started flipping the pages. Her eyes widened. "These aren't -- the usual fairy tales."
"They're real," Henry said, eyes guarded. "Everyone in Storybrooke, where I live, came from the Enchanted Forest. Came from these stories." Emma had the distinct impression that he was waiting for the two of them to say No, those stories were made up, or Don't be ridiculous.
"Yeah," Bae said softly. "Yeah, kid. They're real. We both came from there too."
A shy smile spread across Henry's features, making his face light up. The smile did something to Emma's insides. "You did too?" he asked, wonderingly.
Bae nodded. "I... came through from a different time. I'm not in the book, I think. I'm not one of the characters you would know." Emma gave him a sharp glance. That was the truth, of course, as far as it went, but she'd seen the name Rumpelstiltskin in the book.
"So," said Henry, "you guys know about the curse, then?" Bae and Emma both nodded. August might be in Tahiti now, but before he'd left he'd drilled them both in everything he could remember about the curse, about the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest, until Emma thought she could recite the stories in her sleep. "Will you both come back with me to break it?"
"Yes, we need to go tonight," Bae snapped at Henry. "Do your parents know where you are? They're probably frantic!"
"I don't have parents. Just a mom, and she's the Evil Queen."
Emma stared at Henry. "Queen Regina is your mother?"
"Yeah. She doesn't love me. She just pretends to."
"Okay, kid," Bae said, "that's rough, I agree, having her as your mom. But she's your mom. I'm sure she loves you. We need to get you back right away."
"But she --" Emma began furiously. She stopped, considered Bae. Considered who his father was. "Um. Right."
*
Henry had fallen asleep in the back of the car. Emma, driving, wished she could sleep. Bae was silent, though awake; Emma occasionally glanced to the side to see him, eyes wide open, staring off into space.
"Bae," said Emma, her voice pitched low so as not to wake Henry. "Listen. I'll let you know if I need someone to keep me awake. You should get some rest."
Bae sighed. "I'm fine, Emma."
Emma rolled her eyes. "Who was it again who made me practice truth-telling until I could even tell when you and August were lying? Come on, Bae." She knew that it was always better, when Bae started getting into these moods, to force him to talk about them instead of letting him sink deeper into melancholy. "We're getting closer to your father, I know."
"Yeah." Bae sighed again. "We've been over all of this before. I just wish -- I wish I knew why August knew so much about Rumpelstiltskin, and had never heard of me. That the Dark One took him over so completely that he forgot me -- "
Emma tried to make her voice as gentle as she could. "You don't know that he forgot you. Just because August didn't know doesn't mean anything. He was seven."
"I know the kind of monster the magic made him into. I believe August was very clear on that. Turning people into puppets, Emma?"
"Maybe you can ask him yourself, once we get there."
"Except I can't," Bae pointed out. "Henry says no one remembers, right?"
"Yeah," Emma said softly. It was what she had been telling herself for the whole car ride. My mother won't know me. My father won't know me. They'll be there, Henry thinks Snow White, at least, is there -- if we can trust a ten-year-old kid -- but I shouldn't expect anything. "Well. That's why we have to break the curse. So we can talk to them."
Bae said, "I hope at least that we'll be able to find some information about the curse. What if we get there and we can't figure out how to break it?"
"No," said Emma. "You taught me about magic, you were the one who told me that's not the way of magic. In curses like these, there's always a loophole, always a route to breaking them. There's always a way." She tried to sound confident, but wasn't sure she'd quite managed it.