Miles To Go

Chapter Four

"I'm done," Emma declared to herself as she tied the last garbage bag and let it fall to the floor with a heavy thud. "Are you finished up there yet, kid?"

"Just about, Mom!" Henry called out from one of the bedrooms upstairs.

Emma sighed heavily, wiping at her forehead with her sleeve as she carried the garbage bag outside to join the others in the pile near the front porch. For hours on an end, she and Henry had gotten straight to work with cleaning the cottage and yet, the only thing that was on her mind and pushed her move faster, harder, was the cold smile she'd received from Regina when they'd been in town. It had hurt, but it also sparked something deep inside of her, something she hadn't allowed herself to feel in a very long time. Pain. Guilt. Loss. Heartbreak. All of those things, she'd felt all over again with one simple look.

"I caught two of them," Henry said as he came out the front door holding the trap with two of the field mice scurrying about inside. "Maybe after we have dinner we can let them go?"

"Sure, kid, sounds like a plan, and no," Emma said with a look that and Henry smiling guiltily. "I'm not gonna let you keep them no matter how much you beg me. They're field mice, they belong you know, out in the fields."

"Can we still have s'mores for dinner, Mom?"

Emma looked back at her son, not wanting to disappoint him. A big part of this vacation was for him, to give him a chance to have some time out of the city, just as much as it was for herself. For his whole life, she'd been putting him first and there would be no exceptions made now, not even with the fact that Regina was there in the very same town without her ever having knowing about this beforehand. If she'd known...

You still would've come here, Swan. No sense in denying it now.

"Mom?"

"What, kid?"

"S'mores for dinner?"

An ominous boom of thunder suddenly squashed those plans of building a fire out in the back and making s'mores for dinner. They both barely made it back under the cover of the front porch before the rain poured down from the sky above. Emma placed her hands on Henry's shoulders after he put the small cage he'd used to trap the mice down on the front porch, well out of the reach of the rain coming in from the storm.

"Well, kid, looks like s'mores are off the menu for tonight," Emma said and she shook his shoulders gently upon his dejected sigh. "Tomorrow, okay? I promise," she said, pausing as lightning streaked across the darkening sky. "Given we don't get any more freak storms like this one, okay?"

"So, what are we having then?"

"We did buy other food," Emma chuckled, ruffling his shaggy brown hair as she ushered him back inside the cottage. "What do you say about having breakfast for dinner, kid?"

"Because it's the only thing you can make better than anything else?" Henry asked as he grinned up at her. "Of course. Breakfast for dinner it is, Mom."

"Did you get finished up upstairs?"

"Yeah, but..." Henry trailed off as the lights flickered. "Once I saw the mice in the trap, I kind of got distracted trying to play with them."

"Henry..."

"Don't worry, Mom. I changed the sheets and swept the floors, cleaned up the broken glass—"

"The window!" Emma gasped as she quickly turned on her heels and ran up the stairs and into the bedroom on the right, the one with the broken window. Rain poured in from outside and she struggled to push the double bed as far away from the broken window as she could. "We'll have to get that fixed tomorrow. You can stay in the other room tonight, kid."