The Coward's Daughter [An OUAT Fanfic]

John Doe

Y/N was still thinking about what Henry had said the next day, she was helping out with the volunteer field trip to the hospital.

As she helped hang a 'Get Well' banner, she kept trying to figure out how she related to the 'Princess and the Pea' story. Mary Margaret had told her Henry envisioned her as Snow White, which made sense with her dark hair and sweet demeanor.

She thought back to the story, her father had read it to her once or twice when she was little. A girl showed up at the door of a castle during a rainstorm, she claimed to be a princess and asks spend the night.

The queen didn't believe her so she hid a pea under a big pile of mattresses, then the girl tells the queen she couldn't sleep because of the pea and her and the prince were married.

Why would Henry think they were the same person?

She looked around the room and noticed Henry wasn't amongst the crowd of kids, she looked towards the coma patient ward and noticed him standing at the bedside of a sleeping blond man.

She climbed off the ladder and made her way through the door. Mary Margaret taking notice and following closely behind.

"Henry what are you doing in here?" Y/N asked.

"Is Mr. Doe going to be okay Miss Gold?"

"His last name isn't Doe, honey." Mary Margaret. "That's just what they call people when they don't know who they are." Y/N glanced at the Patient ID on his bed, sure enough the man was a John Doe, unidentified.

"Do you know who he is?" Henry asked a little too innocently.

"I don't know, I just bring him flowers on my rounds."

"Let's help the other decorate." Y/N suggested, leading Henry away from the unconscious body by his shoulders.

"You sure you don't know him?" Henry asked Mary Margaret as Y/N led him away.

"Of course not." Mary Margaret said gently, "C'mon you shouldn't be in here."

The teachers led Henry back with the class and continued decorating. As Mary Margaret and Y/N sat helping the children inflate balloons, she could swear Henry was looking at Mary Margaret, with a calculating expression as if he was hatching a plan.

"How'd your date with Whale go last night?" She asked Mary Margaret softly.

"Do not want to talk about it." Mary Margaret answered as she tied the bottom in a knot and passed it to a girl with golden hair.

"That bad?"

"Yep, he didn't even pay."

"Yeesh." They continued inflating the baloons until Y/N decided to break the silence. "So, I talked to Henry the other day. About his... hypothesis."

"Hypothesis?"

"His theory y'know. About the fairytales?"

"Oh Y/N you really shouldn't bother him about that."

"It wasn't bothering! I was asking why he was having trouble focusing in class and it just sort of came up."

"Really?" Mary Margaret asked sarcastically.

"Well, I might've asked a few questions myself, but only because I was worried!" Mary Margaret shot her a sort of 'sure you did' look before handing the next balloon to another student.

"Well, what did you ask?"

"Just if he was doing okay. And also which character I'm supposed to be." She mumbled the last sentence and Mary Margaret chuckled.

"And here I thought you were a scientist." She giggled. "Did he tell you which one?"

"Yes and that's what I don't understand. He says I'm from the 'Princess and the Pea' fairytale. Where did he get that from?" Y/N found herself blushing in embarrassment, she took off the jacket she was wearing and draped it over a chair.

"Well," Mary Margaret said, "You are the daughter of the richest man in town. That sort of makes you princess-ish, when you think about it. And you're always falling asleep on the job."

"Not always. And anyway you're thinking of Sleeping Beauty not Princess and the Pea."

"Am I?" She smiled, clearly teasing. "Looks like we're all done with the balloons!"

The balloons were tied onto strings and hung around the coma patient ward. Y/N had to admit, Mary Margaret's class had done an excellent job.

But as the children boarded the buses, she caught a glimpse of Henry waiting in line and noticed he was staring at the hospital, right at the coma ward window, before he boarded the bus, with Y/N closely behind.

The back to the school was like most field trip bus rides, loud and bumpy. But Storybrooke Elementary's youngest teacher wasn't trying to bring order, on the contrary she found herself sitting quietly; lost in thought.

She was thinking about Henry again, and what he'd said to her when she'd kept him after the bell. What college had she gone to? She grabbed her phone and began looking through the camera roll, scrolling as far back as she could go. The phone had been a gift from her father when she'd gone off to college.

She had agreed to call him every Friday while she was gone and as such the phone contained a plethora of old photos from her university days.

She flipped through them: mostly mirror selfies from parties, a couple of photos of whiteboards in class, a photo of her father in a tacky holiday sweater during Christmas break- then finally she saw it, her proof.

A selfie of her at a football game wearing a Storybrooke U sweatshirt. She was a Storybrooke University alumni of course! How on earth could she have forgotten such a thing? She cursed herself for almost believing in a ten year old's wild imagination and put the phone back in her purse.

She shivered a little against the cold wall of the bus and reached for her jacket, but realized it wasn't around her waist or in the seat next to her. Y/N let out a soft groan, she'd left it on the chair at the hospital.