21I don't own OUAT. Okay, so I haven't written in FOREVER but I actually have a reason. I am working fulltime ( as well as writing like a dozen stories + working on a book) so yeah, I really didn't have that much time, sorry. I am really grateful that you like the story though, and I will try to update quickly! You guys are all the best.
"You're wrong. People like you make me sick. Say sorry, you piece of shit"
"For what?"
"For existing! For making sure that maybe, others will be like you"
" I am wonderful "
" Is that what your mommy says? Well, she LIED. My dad says your kind is disgusting. That thanks to you, our talents aren't developed well enough"
"Maybe your dad is wrong, because- "
Pain. Split lip. Pain. Bruised knuckles. Pain. Little stones digging into his knees, ripped jeans.
Pain, a black eye. Anger. Only barely holding back. Tears and laughter and mocking words- wrong, stupid, disgusting, go away.
Henry shoots up, his hand going to his lip and almost-but-not-quite touching it - like it's still throbbing, and slowly moves it to touch his eyes- and then finally exhales shakily, relieved he isn't six again, he isn't six and terrified and confused.
He slowly shrugs the blanket off, and then just clenches it into his hands really tightly and stares at the back of his mom's head. He doesn't understand. He has slept for several hours, and he feels like someone poured glue into his eyes and there isn't a thought in his head that is finished. Mom has been driving all the time he didn't dare to sleep, and she seems-
No, she isn't okay. She's this look in her eyes that makes him want to yell at her but he can't find the right words. He can't talk to her right now, because it's like she isn't there and she isn't herself and he just keeps thinking about Emma and the most awful villain, about his grandmother and his – their Emma. There's all this stuff in him, in his stomach and his eyes and his chest and he doesn't understand anything.
He just knows he is afraid. That things were starting to get all right and somehow they got messed up again and it isn't fair and he wants to attack, just like that first time with a boy who thought he was worthless because he is Untalented and the dozens after him. But he knows better. He has a good mom who raised him, and a good heart that he can use.
Still, he kind of really wants to yell at least. Just so he is doing something, instead of just sitting in the back of the car, staring at his mom ( still not knowing what's the right thing to say, or just the best thing) and his thoughts all a garbled mess that's cantered around where Emma is and what is happening to her.
There's so many possibilities and he doesn't want to think about any of them. He squeezes his eyes shut, counts – uno, dos, tres- anything that might help him to block it or to just sleep. Then he realizes sleeping will just mean more nightmares and he doesn't want to miss anything -he's a hero too, right? He can help save Emma- so instead he stays awake.
The landscape hurls past and he doesn't note more than flashes. His mom's hands tightening around the wheel, a burning tree, less and less houses, his mom's lips pressed tightly together. Eventually, the landscape gets so unsettling – with all the absence, of humans, of the birds, anything really- that he turns to his mom and repeats her name until she snaps out of that terrifying, worrying thing she has been in
" Mami? What is this ?" he whispers, glancing at the space around them.
" It is the home of an old friend"
"But this isn't a home, it's- " he doesn't know, but it hurts to think anyone would have to live here.
"It is for someone like her, mijo " his mother answers, and she's so tense. The last time she was this tense and this- it was probably after their first fight, or maybe that time his classmates told them there was a way to activate his talents and he jumped.
"But mom, it's – "
"I know, mi cielo, I know. But this .. " she hesitates a heartbeat and the way she speaks the word makes it mean something different, although he doesn't know what. " friend of mine is very special"
" Why? What's going on mom?"
Silence. He asks again, but his mom just grits her teeth and he knows her well enough that she is almost going to snap at him. He still asks. " Mami"
She inhales sharply and he screams, high and loud and pained, when the tires start screeching and the car is going off the road and his mom is trying everything and he sees her eyes in the mirror and thinks no, not my mom, I have to save her and he wants to curse and hates her and is screaming even louder.
There's purple smoke and the last thing he sees before it takes him to safety is his mom's eyes rolling back, her body slumping and her lips mouthing his name.
He wakes again, but this time the nightmare is when he is awake and the safety is when he dreams. He would rather face a million bullies, mountains of homework and even the villain than open his eyes and remember.
He wakes in that unfamiliar bed, in unfamiliar clothing that smell strange and he is tumbling out of the bed and running out of the room screaming before he can think. Or think more than 'she can't be- no, she isn't, fuerte y intelligente, fuerte y intelligent, fuerte. He almost tumbles of the stairs, he can't see because of the tears and his throat hurts but he can't scream because there is suddenly a hand on his mouth.
He bites it, and all the reaction he gets is a chuckle.
" Calm down, little hatchling "
The hands slowly let him go, and he tries to run only to end up in strong arms. " You will wake your mother, and she needs – "
He turns around, hardly daring – "She's – " alive " Okay?"
" Yes, hatchling, she is. Your mother is very strong"
He breaks down. It's the only right way to describe how he slumps against the person and shudders and allows them to just lead them downstairs and gently push them down into a chair. He's sobbing so hard by that point that he can't even drink whatever they have handed him (maybe it's better: they're still a stranger)
" Do you feel better, kindling?"
He sniffs. "Why do you keep calling me things like that? I am not a baby"
The – he realizes they are a she, now that he can see her properly- woman smiles. He has never seen a smile like that and – her teeth are kind of weird actually, and there's this vaguely orange glint to her eyes. He feels vaguely uncomfortable, but also not? It doesn't make sense, he knows.
" You might as well be one to me" the woman replies
" What do you mean- " he frowns, then widens his eyes. " You're- "
"Smart boy, indeed" the woman says, smiling.
"But they died"
It's like the woman freezes, just for a moment. Then that intense emotion is gone again " Murdered" she corrects
"Why- but you – eh – " he doesn't really know how to be polite about this, and how to avoid hurting her. He doesn't want to hurt anyone
" Some managed to escape those … " she curls her lip, exactly like he once saw a wolf do in a nature documentary once. " experiments . I am one of them"
"So there are more"
" Perhaps"
"But your friends or fa- "
" I am not in possession of either" the woman's eyes go to someplace to the right. He guesses his mom is there, one floor above them. He almost runs from the room.
He swallows. " What happened to my mom?"
" You are a fierce one, exactly like your dam" the woman smiles, and there's something – it's kind of like his mom looks like him and he subconsciously drops his shoulders a little, drops his hands as well.
" We're family. Familia ser la seguridad"
" Family is safety"
Henry stares at her, then swallows like there are three- no, a dozen and they're on fire – tennis balls in his throat when she adds " An odd thing to say for someone with your mother's family"
"Mom has always protected me. Or tried- " he thinks of all the times he was so angry and she only made it worse by lying to him, again, or keeping him to his room or- back then, he came up with all these reasons why she was doing it and they made him want to yell at her and beg her to at least love him, because it wasn't fair that he did( love her) and she didn't. But that wasn't what it was about, right?
"Your mother does tend to hold on to things a little too tightly" the woman comments
He looks at her, and suddenly realizes this person probably knows. Knows all the things his mom would never tell him, even the most terrible things, but that he wants to know as much as he doesn't want to. " I am not going to fall for that"
"Fall for what, little hatchling?"
" Your game. You're being manipulative. It won't work"
"I do not play games, I have no need of them"
He hesitates. " I don't know- "
" I do not"
He doesn't think she is lying. " Okay. Can I see my mom now?"
" Perhaps we need to allow her a little bit more time"
" But she's- "
"Your mother is resilient, unbendable and unbreakable but her magic is exhausted. As a consequence, so is her body. Rest is what she needs"
" She needs me. You can't separate us!"
" I am not separating you, little hatchling"
" But- "
" I am not. Now, drink"
" No. You're still a stranger"
"Your dam brought you to me. Do you not trust her?"
"She didn't- " he bites his lip. Shut up, you can't tell her that.
" She did not wish to come" she finishes, but she doesn't seem annoyed or cold or anything but amused, really.
"Yeah, kind off"
"That is understandable" and he can't keep himself from asking then because it's so nonchalant that it just screams 'SOMETHING HAPPENED' and he is kind of curious. Also, he doesn't want his mom to get even more hurt, so he needs to know everything that could hurt her.
"Why?"
The woman chuckles " I am quite confident that your mother would poison me at the very least if I told you, little one"
"I am not little! " he puffs his chest out a bit " I am almost as tall as mom"
" Your mother is not of a large stature herself" the woman chuckles, then smiles. Usually, he doesn't like it when adults do that, because it almost always means they're being condescending but there's a certain fondness to it so he doesn't really mind "Her personality, however, makes the mind forget how tiny she actually is"
" I wouldn't say that to her. She gets kind weird about it. She once threatened to turn someone into a eunuch when they referred to her in a really rude way "
" She has always been a passionate woman"
" Uh sure. How long have you known her?"
"My kind does not think dates are of a great importance"
"Oh"
There's another chuckle and the woman adds "She was younger, however. Only barely into adulthood "
There's something about the way the villains says it, like- " How old are you?" he blurts out, then simultaneously remembers like all mom's lessons and liners on politeness and quickly adds "Uh sorry, you don't have to answer that"
She doesn't seem to mind. He has decided this woman has no emotions, except slight amusement and - yeah, he doesn't even know. It's kind of scary though. She is kind of scary. " A great deal older than you, hatchling"
" That's really vague" he protests
" I have lived past the age of several human lifetimes"
"Wow" he gasps, and stares at her. "If you weren't a villain, that would be so cool"
" Cool? Why would anything- "
" It means it's nice"
" I disagree"
" What, that it's cool? But it totally is, like you must have been there when the Capital was created, right? When the first hero struck down a dra- oh sorry" he flushes, realizing she probably hates that a hero hurt one of the first great villains.
" I was referring to the word 'cool' itself. And yes, I lived through all of that"
"Wow" he exhales, and stares at her. He can't like her (she's wrong, and heroes are not supposed to like the people that do wrong stuff) but she seems kind of really cool and this stuff- all the history- it matters
Her lips twitch, again. " Quite. Do you enjoy tales like that, hatchling?"
"What, you mean like history? Because I really like history!"
"Hm. It is a lot less enjoyable when you have actually lived it, I can assure you that"
His mom always said it wasn't polite to tell adults they're lying or really, really wrong but – well, she is. " But history has all these Talented, the very creation of Talented and their communities. Tere used to be a lot of darkness, but then they started to figure out how to raise Talented and the great three communities were created and – "
" And more than three thousand people burned"
"What?"
" Those that are called heroes now did not peacefully solve conflicts. They baselessly attacked and did not care about collateral damage. Your paper is wrong"
"But they- " They were the good guys! It's an instinctual thought, one that seems so easy and so right- but then he thinks back to the past weeks and months and Emma's face when she described how the Talented were treated. How some of them were separated from parents-
" They hurt us, but they hurt their own in equal measure"
He's blinking. All the people in the books- the names they managed to discover, the talents they had- he's admired them for ages. " They were wrong?" he whispers
" Oh mijo " a voice says. He immediately runs into her arms in reply.
"Mami" he says, grinning.
She doesn't say anything, just holds on to him tightly and he immediately feels a million times better. That last memory he has (thinking she was dyi- ) is awful, but she's here and she is okay and he hasn't lost both of them. And they will get Emma back. They will.
It turns out the ticket to anything, including the headquarters of a super creepy, insane supervillain, is the fire-spitting evil woman your mother used to be best friends with. Like, they don't even have to do anything except hold on really tight and try not to scream. Mal's ( apparently she was supposed to be his godmother so he is allowed to call her Mal) tail just breaks down walls. Like a bulldozer. Or dynamite.
She turns back into a woman when they're inside, and it's eerily quiet. They just broke down a wall, and – well, two people are on the ground and- he doesn't want to think. Doesn't want to, doesn't want to, doesn't want to –
" This is suspicious" Mal just says, and mom has got that look on her face she gets whenever another dumb council person is trying to 'usurp' her . It's mildly terrifying, but he's her son so he is immune.
" Henry – "
"No! I am not leaving, I told you"
Mom bends over slightly so she can look at him eye-to-eye, gently touching his chin. " Henry, Maleficent will bring you to a safe location. Both I and Emma would be devastated if anything happened to you, and you cannot defend yourself against this"
He would scream at her, push her, run away but then she chokes and adds " And I cannot protect you, either. So you have to go, please"
"Mami, you – "
He doesn't know what happens. One moment, it's just his mom in front of him and he is going to convince her and then there is a fireball in her hand and there's this really horrible smell. There's girls and guys and things that look like ogres or bloated corpses. There's absolute silence, but there should be screaming because that must have hurt and that must have hurt more and that must have hurt most.
Before he can run to the evil queen and help her, there is claws digging into his shoulder and the ceiling is gone. All the people and creatures behind him slowly get really small and the wind whips into his face painfully. He can't fight against the dragon taking him away from mom. He can't even see which one is mom, they're gone so fast.
And then they're dropping, and he is on his feet and running away as soon as the ground is beneath his feet. Except he imagines it's kind of like being on land again after a really long time on sea, so his legs are useless and his eyes are burning right with his lungs and well- she's a dragon.
He bites down on her hand as soon as she grabs him, but she doesn't let go
"LET GO LET GO LET GO THAT IS MY MOM"
" Little- "
" EVIL MEAN EVIL VILLAIN LET ME GO I WANT TO GO LET ME GO"
" Hatch- "
He stops yelling, and instead starts thrashing. He bites her again and tries to throw his body away from her or wriggle out from her grip. It could be ten minutes or a hundred, but it doesn't work. He finally collapses against her, shaking.
She very slowly lets go, and he doesn't fight her when she pushes him down. " Your mother is capable of defending herself-"
" If she can't defend me, then she can't – she will- I don't know- " he just stares at her, daring her to be a dumb adult and lie to him like he's stupid and doesn't know. But she does the opposite and says " You are right. She might get hurt, she might not even make it. But she is strong, and the last thing you should do is endanger herself because that will break her "
"Who says you're even helping? You obviously don't even like her anymore!"
" What- "
" She h- she did something bad to you, didn't she?" he wipes away the tears, sniffles. " I know she did, and that's why she didn't want to go to you"
" I will not discuss this with you"
" doesn't matter. I know anyways"
" All right" she says, and sits down as well. They're silent for a while and maybe it's getting to her as much as it is getting to him, tugging on his stomach and turning it upside down, because she eventually breaks the silence.
"You should rest. I will guard"
" Why are you still helping mom? You're mad at her, aren't you?"
Mal chuckles. " No little dragon, I am not. I am not the type – I believe the expression is 'to hold grudges'. You and your dam are safe from me"
" But she isn't safe" he swallows, and he blinks and blinks but it's stupid and useless like the whole stupid situation. " She is never going to be safe, is she?"
He thinks he likes Mal. She doesn't lie, even if it's really difficult and painful, she just doesn't. " Your mother will always be a target"
He almost manages to return her grin " But she is a predator, and she will fight those we come for her "
He leans against a tree, hugging his knees. " It's not that easy, is it?" If mom is a villain, the heroes will hurt her. If mom is a hero, the villains will hurt her. And there are so many, and she already got hurt badly and they got Emma- he tries to focus on the good things, on Emma's kinda lame jokes that are still funny and how mom's really passionate about some TV shows and how much Emma likes their sarcasm-
His brain won't cooperate though. It , too, is stupid.
It plays all this stuff on repeat, like how mom looked with blood in her face, how Emma sounded when she spoke about her childhood, the hearts, the papers, all the children in his class chanting and laughing, auntie Kathryn's eyes when he spoke about the program, Ruby's teeth so close to his neck, the-
"Henry"
The use of his name is strange enough that he immediately looks up. It's mom. Mom, and- Emma, in her arms with her head on mom's shoulder and wearing this stupid hospital get-up he knew she would make fun off if she were conscious. Her hair is limp and all gross and there are stains all over her. He can feel his heart pound painfully when he realizes there are tubes attached to her arms, and they look a lot like bloodsucker. They even pulse, kind of.
Mom stumbles towards them, nearly falls. He hates his brain, for noticing the brown-red stains on her fingers and beneath her fingernails and on her cheek. He hates his stupid brain for pointing out that there are pieces (of sk- no no no no) on mom's clothing and they're ripped and there are these gashes, like someone buried their claws in mom's stomach and tried to rip it open.
" Ma- mami?" he stammers
" We have to leave" she isn't even speaking to him. She is speaking to Mal, and he starts to tremble again. She readjusts Emma in her arms, and invites him for a hug. He has his arms thrown around the both of them in a second, closing his eyes and trying to block out the sound of Mal and his mom making plans. They can't be in that much trouble.
Right?
One-two-three-five-ten-twenty- she loses count quickly, and she doesn't care. She wants to care, for Henry. But there's Clara, who helped her mother attach the instrument to Regina that made her unable to move for five days. There's Gerald, who grabbed her in the middle of the night and brought her to mother and a dead body. There's Leo, who held her back when she screamed and screamed and screamed and Daniel- she has never used her powers like this, so rashly and wildly. She throws people, has plants erupt from the ground and ignores all the sounds of bones breaking and people choking on their blood. She follows her gut, her Talent, the thing that has her and Emma connected so much that she can feel when the woman is near. The people and the bodies and the yells and the Talents erupting all push to the background, and then she is suddenly in the room. Mother's favourite toy is there, but Regina is no longer fifteen and terrified and reluctant to hurt another human being. This time, it are not her limbs that are pushed into an odd angle and it is not her throat that closes suddenly. She steps over the motionless woman, and gently places her hand on Emma's forehead. She cuts the tubes with a small motion, ignoring the substance that hits the floor and illuminates the room slightly. As soon as the vines and bands and all the other constrictions are gone, she lifts Emma in her arms and disappears.
(and she doesn't let her brain focus on the terrifying question 'why would mother allow me to take her'?)