Chapter Text
Chapter 1
“Kid, come on, hurry! We wanted to get going at eleven, it’s almost 11:45 and you’re still not ready.”
“I’m coming.” Henry called from his room. “I’m ready now, okay?” he told his mom, when he finally entered the living room, his travel bag over his shoulder. But when he saw his mother’s accusing expression he sighed. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Emma nodded.
“Okay, kid. But let’s get your bag in the car now. I want to be on the road for a few hours before we stop for lunch.”
Henry nodded and passed his mother on the way out of the apartment. Emma checked one last time if the TV was disconnected and the stove turned out. Satisfied she followed her son and locked the door behind herself.
While waiting for the elevator, because of course Henry didn't keep it waiting for her, she couldn’t help but smile in expectance of their vacation. Ever since she could remember they took this trip during Henry’s fall break. They drove up to Boston, stayed there for a night and then followed the coast line up to Rockport, Maine; just the two of them, no thoughts wasted on school or work or whatever else was bothering them in their everyday life in New York.
Which was a lot lately, Emma thought with a hint of bitterness. While Henry had his first crush on a classmate a few months ago, and his first broken heart a few weeks later, Emma didn’t really have more luck with her love life.
She tried to give Henry the image of being happy as a single mom, but there was only so much one could do. And it wasn't just that she couldn't remember the last time she got laid. Apart from a few friendly co-workers she didn't have anyone in her life with whom she'd share more than the obligatory small talk. Of course there was Henry but talking to a 13 year old didn't really cover her need for deep conversation.
That's why she started dating the guy from the coffeeshop a few weeks ago. He had seemed nice and funny and most of all interested. Turned out the only thing he was interested in was the answer to the question "how many affairs can i have without any of them noticing?" The answer was 4. So Emma poured the coffee he had paid for over his lap and left the café.
The elevator doors opened and Emma shook her head to clear it from the bitter thoughts. She was looking forward to their trip, and that should be all she should be thinking about.
She played with her keys on the way down, flipping the dreamcatcher pendant between her fingers. This was what she needed right now- something that would catch the bad thoughts. And she believed that their trip would offer her that.
When the elevator doors opened again on the bottom floor Henry was already waiting for her.
“Now who’s the one who’s late?” he grinned.
“Only because you couldn’t wait until I locked the doors and had me waiting for the old thing to come up again.”, she answered, a smile returning to her face while she ruffled through his hair and headed for the door.
They put Henry’s bag in the trunk and Emma’s purse in the back seat of the yellow bug and headed off into New York’s traffic.
….
“Aren’t we supposed to be there already?” Henry whined, 3 hours into their drive from Boston to Rockport the next day.
“Henry, stop asking the same question every five minutes! How old are you?” Emma reproved.
“But I’m hungry.”
“There are some candy bars left somewhere in the back.”
“I don’t want candy bars, I want… burger and fries.”
Emma sighed and started counting to ten. Before she even got to five though, something at the side of the road caught her attention.
A couple of yards ahead of them stood a black Mercedes, its front crushed against a roadside tree. Emma immediately stopped the bug and felt her face go pale when she noticed that someone was still in the car.
Oh no, that definitely wasn’t the way she wanted their trip to start.
“Mom, there’s someone inside the car!” Henry noticed at this moment.
Emma nodded slowly, not still processing the situation.
“We have to help!” Henry called already stepping out of the car. Emma’s brain switched back into working mode and she got out herself, following her son.
Behind the steering wheel of the other car sat a dark haired woman at about the same age as Emma. She was unconscious, but other than a small wound on her forehead Emma couldn’t see more injuries. Of course that didn't mean there weren't any.
“What are we going to do?” Henry asked disturbed “We can’t just leave her!"
“No, of course not. We should… call 911. Henry, go fetch my phone from the car. “
While Henry ran back to the bug, Emma tucked at the Mercedes’ driver’s door. Hoping and praying she searched for a pulse on the other woman’s wrist and was more than relieved when she found one. Her hands were ice cold though and Emma knew she had to do more than just wait around for the ambulance.
In an attempt to wake her up she gently touched the woman’s shoulders, speaking to her loudly but there was no reaction.
Henry came back with her phone and she turned to face him.
“Okay. So I’m gonna call for an ambulance, you go try find some blanket and maybe the first aid kit. I think they’re somewhere in the trunk.” Henry nodded and ran back to the bug while Emma dialed 911. While the connection build she noticed how badly her own hands were shaking and took a deep breath.
A few minutes later, Henry had already returned with a blanket in his arms, she hung up and stuffed the phone into her pocket.
“What did they say?” he asked, “Oh and I couldn’t find the first aid kit”.
“They’ll send an ambulance which will be here soon. We should just stay here and watch over her. Give me the blanket.”
She took the blanket from her son’s arms and spread it over the unconscious woman’s body.
“So we just… wait?” Henry asked unbelieving.
“We just wait.” Emma confirmed with a sigh.
“But… we should do something!”
“We can’t Henry. We have no idea what happened or what injuries she sustained. We could make things worse. So we wait and watch her and check for a pulse every few minutes.” When she saw the fear in her son’s eyes she sighed and crouched down to his size. “She will be okay, I promise. We already helped her by calling the ambulance and staying here until it arrives.” She gave him a reassuring hug before leaning against the Mercedes.
Henry stood there, his face glued onto the unconscious woman in the black car. He was chewing on his bottom lip like he always did when he was thinking about something. Emma knew something was still bothering him.
“What is it, Henry?” she queried, trying to hide her own agitated emotions to calm her son.
“Someone should hold her hand.”, he insisted, “To reassure her, you know, that everything will be okay? I would want someone to hold my hand.”
Emma’s heart ached a little by seeing her 13 year old son so worried and scared. After all he was still only a child.
“You’re right Henry.” She answered. “I would want that, too.”
She turned and slid down the car, sitting down on the asphalt. Carefully she took the brunette's left hand and cradled it in her own.
“She will be okay, right?” Henry asked, stepping close to his mom.
“Of course she will.” Emma replied hugging her son to her side with her free arm.
When finally the ambulance arrived, the paramedics asked a thousand and one questions that Emma couldn’t answer.
“How is she?” Emma eventually asked standing next to the ambulance, before it was about to drive off.
“She seems to be alright, despite being unconscious.”, the paramedic informed her, “She probably suffered a concussion, which is the reason she’s unconscious and we still have to think about internal injuries but as far as we go I would say she was quite lucky.”
Emma nodded.
“Where do you bring her?”
“Pen Bay Medical Center in Rockport.”
The doors were closed and the ambulance drove off. Emma took a deep breath and looked around. The only ones left now were Henry and her, and the two men who had been called to tow the black Mercedes into town.
Slowly and silently Henry and she walked back to the yellow bug, sliding inside.
“So what do we do now?” Henry asked after a few minutes of silence.
“We drive to Rockport. That’s where we wanted to go, after all, isn’t it?” She turned to her son, offering him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
He only nodded and looked out of the window, while Emma started the engine and got back on the road.
“Will we visit her?”
Emma sighed. She knew this question would come, knowing what kind of person her son was. He always cared so much about others. She didn’t really understand where he got it from, considering how she had always been kind of a runner, but she was proud of him for this characteristic.
She half-turned her head to briefly look at him.
“Yes we will.”
Henry seemed relieved.
They stayed quiet for a few more minutes before Henry spoke up again again.
“You know, I… I kind of had this strange feeling that I’ve seen her before.”
“The woman in the car?” Emma wondered, not having any idea where her son would know the other woman from.
“Yes. I don’t know why or where I might have seen her, but… she seemed familiar. I don’t know… It’s stupid.”
“No! No, Henry it’s not stupid.” Emma was fast to answer, “It’s not stupid. Maybe you’ve seen someone who looks similar? There are a lot of people living in New York.”
“Yeah… Maybe.”
Henry didn’t really seem convinced but he kept quiet and so did Emma.
Fifteen minutes later they arrived in Rockport. They checked into the small bed and breakfast they always stayed at and unpacked their bags.
While unpacking a few of the vacation feelings came back to Emma and she felt lighter than on the drive here. This was their only vacation so she would make the best of it. Of course the accident they partly witnessed hadn’t been the greatest thing to start it off with, but she was confident that from now on it could only get better.
When she put her last shirt into the closet and closed its doors she turned to Henry with a smile.
“How about getting you that burger now?” she asked him.
His face lit up immediately.
“From the diner across the street?”
“Of course.”
“Yeah!”
Henry dropped the comic he was browsing through on the bed and put on his shoes and jacket as fast as he could, already waiting at the door when Emma took her purse and joined him.
“Let’s go kid.” She said and laid a hand on his shoulder, before she opened the door.
They both ate a huge portion of fries with their burgers and finished with sharing a cup of ice cream.
“That was delicious!” Henry declared leaning back in the booth they were seated in.
“It was.” Emma agreed “What do you want to do now? It’s still early.”
Henry seemed to think for a moment before he asked almost hesitantly: “Could we… I mean… Do you think… Could we go to the hospital and see how the woman from the accident is?”
Emma took a moment to think about it. She had thought about this as well, after Henry had asked about it earlier. Even if she doubted they would get told anything. Still, she thought about what Henry said when they had waited for the ambulance. That he would have wanted someone to hold his hand. If she now put herself in the other woman’s position she would also be glad if someone would be at the hospital, asking for her well-being.
“I think, we can do that.”, she finally answered.
Henry’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Seriously? I thought you would say that we couldn’t or that they won’t tell us anything or something like that.”
Emma smiled at how smart her son was.
“I do think they won’t tell us anything, but I think we should still go there and see for ourselves.”
They got up and Emma paid the bill before they left the diner and got into the bug to drive over to the hospital they had only ever seen from the outside before.
The entrance area looked like one in any other hospital on this world. Emma told Henry to wait at one of the benches and walked over to the reception.
“Hello,”, she greeted, “My name is Emma Swan. My son and I were at the scene of an accident earlier today and the paramedics told us they would bring her here. She would probably be a Jane Doe in her thirties and came in two hours ago? We wondered how she is?”
The receptionist clicked through something on her computer, before answering eventually.
“Yeah, here she is. She’s still in the ER, but that’s all I can tell you.”
“Thank you.”
Emma returned to Henry.
“Good news kid, at least we weren’t turned down just yet. She’s still in the ER. Let’s go look there.”
They followed the signs and entered the ER a few minutes later. It seemed quite calm. They looked around and found a nurse close by.
Emma asked: “We’re looking for a dark haired Jane Doe, she came in two hours ago from a car accident.”
“Bed three.”, the nurse answered after shortly checking her files.
Before Emma could say thanks the nurse was already gone again, busy with another patient. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that calm at all, Emma reconsidered.
They walked over to bed number three and spotted the, by now familiar, frame of the brunette woman. Nobody was around so they slipped between the curtains and looked down at the still unconscious woman. By now she was clad in a hospital gown, the wound on her forehead was cleaned and covered and next to her bed were a couple of infusions and a regularly beeping monitor that showed her heartbeat.
“She’s beautiful.” Henry suddenly said, catching Emma off guard. But she had to agree with him. The brunette was beautiful, even in her current state.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Henry asked, turning to his mom.
“I think so, kid. Otherwise she would not still be in the ER but in some patient’s room already or even at the ICU. And from what I know, her heartbeat seems pretty stable.”
Henry followed her gaze to the monitor next to them and seemed satisfied. He turned to watch the brunette again, a strange expression appearing on his face that Emma couldn’t quite read. It was definitely worry but also some kind of affection and once again Emma wondered where the kid had that characteristic from. Still in thoughts she didn’t notice that Henry had taken the brunettes hand into his own until a deep voice sounded behind her.
“What do you think you’re doing here?” a doctor asked “Who are you?”
She spun around facing the blonde man who stared at them questioningly.
“We… We were the ones who found her and called the ambulance. We were headed to Rockport anyways and wondered how she was.” Emma explained, placing a hand on Henry’s shoulder protectively, who had dropped the brunette’s and when he doctor appeared.
The blonde doctor’s features softened as he answered: “That’s very nice of you but you can’t be here. From what I got you’re not family.”
In this moment a sound coming from the bed behind Emma and Henry made them all turn their attention back to the dark haired woman.
Her eyelids flickered before she managed to open her eyes and a pained moan escaped her mouth.
“She’s waking up!” Henry stated agitated.
The doctor brushed past Emma and Henry, immediately checking her pupils’ reaction and the data on the monitor.
“Can you hear me? Miss, can you hear me? You had an accident; you’re at a hospital, okay?”
“Hmmm.”, came the answer from the brunette.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Re…” she cleared her throat, but her voice still sounded hoarse from not being used for a longer time period when she finally managed to answer: “Regina. Regina Mills.”
“Okay Miss Mills. How are you feeling?”
“I have a terrible headache.”, Regina answered, closing her eyes, her face contorting in pain.
“You will get some medication against that, you suffer a concussion, but otherwise you are fine. No broken bones, no internal injuries, just a cut on your forehead and a few bruises.”
“Hmm…”
The doctor turned to tell a nurse what medicament she should get before he turned his attention to Emma and Henry again.
“Would you please leave now?”
“Of course.” Emma answered.
“But… but she’s awake now!” Henry argued.
“I still have to ask you to leave now.”
At the sound of Henry’s voice Regina’s eyes had opened again, unnoticed by the three other people until a small voice piped up.
“Henry?”
“What?”
Three pairs of eyes shot back to the woman in the bed, but it was Henry who stepped closer and locked eyes with the brunette.
“How do you know my name?” he asked.
A small smile appeared on her face as she closed her eyes again and whispered barely audible:
“Long story.”
“Okay, okay.” The blonde doctor seemed to have overcome his surprise and gently pushed back Henry from the bed. “You really have to leave now.”
“No!” It now came louder from Regina. “No please. They can stay… or… or come back later. Please.”
The doctor seemed seriously confused as his gaze travelled between his patient and Emma and Henry but then he sighed defeated.
“Okay, come back tomorrow during visiting hours.”
“Goodbye.” Henry said “And get well!” without hesitation he took the brunette’s hand in his own again and gave it a reassuring squeeze, before he stepped back to where Emma stood who had been holding her breath for a moment when she saw the intimate gesture her son offered to a complete stranger.
“Mom?” Henry asked, tugging at her hand.
“Yes, of course. We will come back tomorrow, then. Goodbye and get well.”
She offered a little smile to the brunette who returned it before closing her eyes again, seeming utterly exhausted.
Emma and Henry left the hospital and walked over the parking lot to the yellow bug.
“What was that?” she asked when they both were seated in the car and she started the engine.
“What was what?” Henry asked.
“She heard your voice and knew your name. Do you know her?”
“I… I don’t know. I told you she seemed familiar but… I don’t know, I feel like I know her. Like she’s somehow important.”
Emma took a moment to look at her son to see if he was joking but all she saw on his face was pure honesty. He believed in what he just told her and Emma sighed.
This whole thing was utterly confusing and so not what she had hoped for when starting this trip. She wanted to get away from problems and confusion and now she got twice as much of it.
“Oh, oh, Mom, look, they show that new action movie tonight. Can we go see it?”
Henry pointed out of the window towards the local cinema and Emma couldn’t help but smile. At least Henry still had fun, despite how their trip began and really that was all she needed to feel better herself.
“Of course we can, kid. We’ll just go home and walk over to the cinema later, okay? Maybe go to the beach before?”
“Yes, that sound’s great.”