Operation: Parent Trap - A Captain Swan Story

Part 3/7

"Please, Grandma, please!" Liam pleaded.

"Pretty please," Ella begged.

Mary Margaret groaned at her grandchildren, as she squeezed her eyes closed and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

"Fine, I will help you."

"Yes!" they both said, jumping up and down.

"But," she said, wagging her finger at them, "I am going on record as saying I do not condone lying to your parents."

"Okay," Ella said with a shrug of her shoulders.

Mary Margaret nodded. "Anyway, I happen to agree with you. Your parents are about to make the biggest mistake of their lives. They belong together and if this is what it takes to make them realize that, then I'll do whatever I can to help."

Liam smiled. "Thank you, Grandma. Since you're the principal, we need you to make up a flyer on your school stationary about a dance taking place this Friday for grades 4 & 5 at 6 p.m. in the gym. Since it's not on the calendar we need the flyer or they won't believe there is a dance."

Mary Margaret sighed. "Okay, fine. Give me a few minutes."

She disappeared into her home office.

Ella looked at her twin. "Now we just tell both Mom and Dad they have to pick us up at 8. We'll tell Dad that Mom had a work emergency."

Liam chewed on his lip nervously. "Ella, what if this doesn't work?"

"They'll show up to pick us up."

He shook his head. "No, I mean this whole thing. What if we go through all of this and they still get a divorce?"

Ella felt tears well up in her eyes. "Don't say that, Liam. They can't."

"They already have the divorce papers. All they have to do is sign them."

"But they've both had them for weeks now and haven't signed them yet, which means they aren't sure. That means we have a chance."

"I just want you to be prepared if things don't work out the way we want them to."

A tear slipped down her cheek. "I just want things to go back to the way they were before. Dad was at home. We were a family."

"Me too."

...

Friday night, Emma pulled into the school parking lot and her eyebrows rose in confusion. The lot was empty. She looked at her watch. She was only five minutes late. How could everyone be gone already? She hurried out of her car and headed for the gym door.

Killian was in the lot on the other side of the gym and was similarly confused when he pulled in. He got out of the car and headed for the other gym door.

Once inside, he spotted Emma standing across from him in the empty gym. They both smiled and shook their heads, realizing their children had manipulated them once again.

They slowly closed the distance between them.

"Let me guess," Emma said. "They showed you a flyer about a dance and told you I had to work so you needed to pick them up."

"You're bloody brilliant, love."

Emma sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "That means they got my mother to help them. It was on her school stationary."

"They could've stolen it."

"True, but someone had to make sure the janitor left the doors unlocked and the gym open. And she offered to bring them to this imaginary dance since she said she was going to be at it."