Once Upon A Child

Eat Your Heart Out

"Well?" Emma quizzed Dr Whale.

"You were right." He confirmed, "Kind of."

"Kind of?" Snow repeated, "Is he deaf or not?"

"Partially."

"That certainly explains a lot." David stated. It certainly did. Aside from being Ancient Greek, the poor boy struggled to even hear. No wonder he didn't communicate with anyone.

"Is there anything we can do for him?" Snow asked Whale.

"Well, judging from the degree of damage-"

"Damage?" David repeated.

"Yes, it looks as though there's been some physical trauma to the skull around, particularly his right ear but there's also trauma to the left one."

"Could someone have done this to him?" David asked, his mind spilling with various scenarios of what Ellion could have gone through before he arrived in Storybrooke.

"It's possible. It's also possible he was involved in a crash of some sort."

"So," Snow said, trying to steer the conversation away from this tangent, "Is there something we can do?"

"Right, yes, but how successful it will be, we won't know until we try. We can implant hearing aids to try relieve some of the pressure on the inner ear and allow for some, if any, sound waves to perforate the barrier the damage has created. It's more likely to work for the left ear as there is less trauma, but of course-"

"We won't know until we try." Emma finished.

The adults exited Dr Whale's office with more of an understanding about the boy, but there were still so many mysteries to be solved.

"Hi Love." Killian said. He sat in the waiting room with Ellion asleep across the chairs beside him. At the behest of his wife, he'd joined them at the hospital - without his hook, who knows what the child would have insinuated from that - to keep an eye on the boy whilst Emma, and her two thoroughly confused parents, tracked down some answers.

"Tad late for a bit of reading isn't it?" Killian observed, nodding at the storybook Snow had been holding since they left home.

"What? Oh! This, yes! Henry thinks he found what story Joe is from!" Snow explained.

"Really?" Emma said, "And you only thought to tell us now?"

"I'm sorry, our minds were on finding him and then you found out why he didn't talk and-"

"It's okay, I get it." Emma intervened, "So? Can we take a look?"

"Page 70." Charming noted as his wife flicked through the pages of Once Upon A Time Volume VII.

"Here it is," Snow declared. The trio occupied the three chairs adjacent to Killian.

"The story of Tristan and Yvaine." Snow read aloud.

"I recognise those names!" Emma cried.

"Dammit, I forgot where they're from." She huffed.

"It's okay, maybe it'll come to you while I keep reading." Snow suggested. "Tristan, in comparison to everyone else in this story, was rather normal. That is, until he journeyed through the wall into the kingdom of Stormhold-"

"Oh!" Emma cried, her hands frantically flapping about. "I know this story! I remember! It's Stardust!"

She grinned until she noticed the bewildered expressions of her family. "You haven't watched Stardust?"

"Cursed." Snow justified.

"Pirate." Killian added.

"Ugh." She grumbled, "You guys have missed so much."