Once Upon A Happy Beginning

Chapter Four: Remember To Read The Fine Print

One Week Later
Snow

"Are you sure it'll work?" I ask Emma carefully, handing her a coffee as she sits opposite me at the breakfast counter, a left finger in her brother's hand on the floor.

It always warms my heart when I think of Emma and Neal, who realistically should they had both been born in the Enchanted Forest, they'd only be a year or so apart in age and would spend a long time training to be royals together. Now, Emma won't have that. She won't want it, but now I have a married young woman who is the strongest person I know. Not to mention, she's our age? How did that happen? Anyone that has no knowledge of everything Storybrooke has been through would assume that David, Emma and I were all siblings rather than parents and their child. Regardless of what could have been or should have been, Emma is pretty much always trying to be the best sister to her little brother. She's been around nearly everyday since the Final Battle to spend quality time with us. There's no monsters to hunt or battles to fight so Emma is focussed on actually letting us be more of a family than not, now that the biggest crimes that affect the town are things like vandalism, which Emma can clear up in a second with a wave of her hand.

"Yes, Mom. It will." She says defiantly, even though I know she's questioning it.

For the last week, Emma has been planning the surprise honeymoon for Hook and needs him to get a passport. Naturally, such things aren't precisely common in Storybrooke. In the whole town, only three people own one – Emma, Henry and August. There's apparently a spell that can create one for you, an almost psychological trick that Emma believes will work for her husband to travel. She's been staring at spell books every minute of every day for these sort of mind tricks since her date night when they decided to see the rest of this world together. She lifts up the passport-sized booklet in front of her and asks me what it looks like: "It's blue? I can see the writing."

She slams it down on the table and drinks some of her coffee. "Why isn't it working?" She almost yells, glancing at the playing toddler. "Regina said that this one would do it! Read the inside."

I flick to the main page inside and stare at it. Jones. Killian. United States of America. Oh. 23 Oct 1682. I flip it round to point the inconsistency to my daughter, trying to reassure her of it's success. "It might work... If the guy at the counter has never seen a calendar before..."

"It's no use, is it?

"Don't say that," David says as he comes downstairs, "I mean, obviously I'd prefer to see you closer to home, but I know how much you've been planning this... You're going on your honeymoon. I'll take it down to Regina and see if she knows what you've done wrong."

"Don't bother." Emma sighs, "She won't know, she's never cast this before. Only one person has."

"Go to them then!" I say, my voice exclaiming in my optimistic nature. My optimism falls flat when Emma tells us just who had used it before. Gold.

"It was when we went to New York to find Neal." My son must look up because Emma coos at him that it's not him, but his namesake. I can hardly believe she's never really had a kid before, a small child anyway (unless you count the fake memories of the Missing Year) because she's got this incredible relationship with Neal, that I don't know, call it grandmother fever, just makes me think she should have another kid. "It definitely worked for him then. I don't know whether it's a Dark One thing or whatever, but I do know that there'll be some sort of price."

"I mean... offer him something he might want?" David suggests, coming to pour himself a cup of coffee out of the pot behind me.

"Like what?" Scoffs Emma. "What could that man possibly want from me?"