Long Lost

Emma sat next to Mary Margaret, slumping in their defeat against Pan and the lost boys. She stared ahead of her, refusing to look at the map that sat between her and her mother; the hatred for Pan's riddle boiling inside of her.

"Emma," Mary Margaret called, snapping Emma out of her self-deprecating trance. "What is it?"

Emma shook her head, her hatred slowly mixing with sympathy for the boy she fought earlier. "It's just... that boy," She began. "...he was just a kid." Emma sighed, remembering the stinging sensation she felt in her chest when she looked into his eyes. He had a look that she recognized like the back of her hand; a look that she'd seen every day in the mirror.

"I looked at him," Emma continued, "And I saw me. A little girl so young and lost, not knowing why her parents didn't want her."

Mary Margaret nodded, Emma's biting tone like knives piercing through her heart. She wished she could tell Emma that she had it all wrong, that she and David did want her, but she knew her pleas for forgiveness wouldn't make a difference now. All that was left was to push through the hurt. "You and that boy are nothing alike, Emma," Mary Margaret objected. "He works for a demon who likes to hurt people. As far as I know you've never intentionally hurt anyone."

"No," Emma sniffled. She wiped away the stray tear with the back of her hand, and cleared her throat. "But me and those boys are the same. They remind me of what I was... of what I'll always be: an orphan." A sudden rush of easement washed over Emma, almost like admitting this was what she'd been waiting for her whole life.

Mary Margaret fought back the tears of guilt, her throat tight with shame over her choices as a mother. She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands, and from the corner of her eye, she saw the map appearing. "Look," She whispered to Emma, pointing with her eyes.

Emma inhaled sharply, grasping the map in her hands. She stood up, a wide, but confused smile on her face. "What happened? Why all of a sudden?"

"You stopped denying your true self," Mary Margaret answered, her voice a bit lower and more solemn than usual.

Emma furrowed her eyebrows, baffled as to what it was that she had said that warranted enough truth to answer Pan's riddle. Then it dawned on her. Her face fell, horrified that she hadn't realized earlier what she was saying and who she was saying it to. "Oh, Mary Margaret. I'm so sorry-"

"That's ok. It's my job as a mother to fix my mistakes, just like it's yours to find Henry." Mary Margaret gestured to the map in Emma's hands.

Emma's mouth sat agape as she stared at Mary Margaret. She wanted to say something else, something that would comfort her for the time being, but she knew Henry was more important right now, so she drew her attention back to the situation at hand.

Mary Margaret waved the others over, forcing a smile on her face.

"Did you finally do it?" Regina asked, her tone as harsh as always.

Emma nodded. "Yeah, I think so." She held the map further away from herself, allowing Mary Margaret and Regina, who now stood on either side of her, to view the map clearly. They traced the depictions of the mountains and the plains as the map finished re-drawing itself, slowly revealing more and more with each passing second, until finally it revealed a red X near one of the mountains.

"Oh, good!" Mary Margaret chimed, pressing one of her hands to her chest as relief washed over her entire body.

"Now we know where to start looking for Hen-" Emma started, but the map wasn't done just yet. Another red X began to manifest in the exact spot where she and the others stood. "What?"