Relativity, an once upon a time fanfic

So this is a companion piece to another fic of mine called Momentum. They stand by themselves but both utilize the same structure and concept. I wanted to write this fic before Season 3b starts, because I feel a good deal of this is going to become AU come Sunday. There are a few spoilers as far as speculation of what's to come in Season 3b, but nothing really major.

Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Relativity

... ... ...

Relativity: /ˌreləˈtivətē/ 1. The absence of standards of absolute and universal application. 2. The dependence of various physical phenomena on the relative motion of the observer and the observed objects.

Emma's family isn't normal.

It's nothing new. She'd known her family was far from 'normal' before she even had a family. (After all, not many people start off life abandoned on the side of the road.) Not-normal became her way of life, and then Henry had fallen into her lap – twice now; once as a runaway on her doorstep, and once in the form of false memories – reenforcing the idea that having a 'normal' family was nothing more than a fairytale.

However, she didn't realize just how not-normal they were until Henry came home with an assignment for science class - pedigrees. It was some busy work about connected earlobes and widow's peaks, filling in his family tree with genetic traits and watching Mendelian law work its way through the leaves and branches. Two spots were easy - 'me' and 'mom' - but that's when things got tricky. "What about my dad?" he'd said, and Emma thought back to her days of robbing convenience stores and sleeping in the bug. The 'dad' spot was filled in - in pencil, not pen - until she could think on it some more.

But that was it. 'Grandma,' 'grandpa.' 'Aunt,' 'uncle.' They were all left blank. Henry had made a face, tapping his pencil against the kitchen table. "Can we make the rest up? Mrs. Bernstein will probably think I was just lazy and didn't want to do it."

Emma had long ago given up on her family. She didn't need them; Henry was all the family she needed. It hadn't bothered her in years, but now it was affecting her kid, and somehow that hurt even more. "I'll talk to your teacher."

In the end, Mrs. Bernstein gave Henry an alternate assignment, and Emma took the day off to take Henry out for pizza in lieu of presenting his family tree to the class. It all worked out, and yet she couldn't tear her mind from the blank spots - the empty branches.

She doesn't know a lot about family, she realizes. She knows Saturday morning pancakes and hot chocolate with Henry. She knows tipsy, flour-dusted baking adventures with Mary Margaret. She knows stale coffee and late nights at the station with David.

But she doesn't know family.

And incidentally, her family is growing, whether or not she's ready.

So when she finds that family tree - just a crumpled piece of paper with two cut-and-pasted photographs - at the bottom of Henry's backpack, she decides it time to do some research.

The library stacks are still disorganized, reduced to literal stacks of books scattered around the empty building, but Belle still smiles and says, "Of course!" when Emma comes in and asks for every book with 'family' in the title. And sure enough, two days later Belle turns up at the station with a wagon full of books ranging from a collection of Addams Family comics to a textbook on the self-same Mendelian genetics that started this whole nonsense.

On second thought, she could have been a bit more specific.

She returns most of the books - all except the Addams Family comics, which she's caught David perusing more than once - and tucks the family tree back into Henry's backpack.

... ... ...

Postulate: The form of each physical law is the same in all inertial frames.

Mary Margaret is elbow-deep in soapy water when Emma trudges through the front door, dripping wet and shivering. "You're home late."

"I wasn't aware I had a curfew," Emma says wryly, kicking her boots off with a thud.

Mary Margaret grins, and gives up on scrubbing burnt cookie from a baking sheet, drying her hands on her jeans and turning to fill two mugs with hot cocoa. "Then I guess you won't be missing your allowance this week."

"Very funny," Emma grumbles, then combs her fingers through her hair, wringing it dry over the doormat.

Mary Margaret presses the warm mug into Emma's hands as she comes to sit at the counter. "How was your day? Other than wet."

"Uneventful," Emma says. "I wonder why Graham even needed a deputy. Nothing ever happens in this town."

Mary Margaret doesn't need to wonder why Graham hired her. In fact, she's almost certain it's the same reason why Emma's home nearly three hours past the end of her shift. "Funny how 'uneventful' days can run late." She tries her best to sound casual - no, not prying at all - but Emma's defensive expression is all the confirmation she needs.

"We just grabbed dinner and a couple drinks at Granny's-" She stops abruptly, clearly reading the smirk on Mary Margaret's face. "Oh no. No. It was not a date."

"Sounds like one to me," Mary Margaret muses, returning her attention to the work at hand.

"It wasn't."

Mary Margaret resists the urge to argue, instead working again at the burnt-on cookie "Whatever you say."

"It wasn't," Emma says again, defensively.

"Mhm," Mary Margaret hums with an amused smile, letting their conversation fall into a familiar silence. Companionship isn't dictated by dialogue, she's discovered. At least not with Emma. Their friendship is defined by silence; by these quiet moments when they realize that neither of them is truly alone. It's defined by hot chocolate and soapy fingers.

ii.

"That's one crisis down," Emma groans, kicking her boots off by the front door. "Only a dozen more to go."

"Only," Mary Margaret deadpans, then shakes the soapy water from her hands and turns to put the kettle on. "Where's your father?"

Emma plops down on a stool and leans her elbows against the counter. "He's at the diner. Not-so-inconspicuously watching Neal and Henry."

That doesn't seem to surprise her mother, as she simply measures out some hot chocolate mix into two mugs, whispering under her breath about it being 'easier here'. "And you're not?"

"No," Emma frowns. "Why would I be?"

Mary Margaret gives her a pointed stare. "I just thought-"

"I do not have feelings for Neal."

Mary Margaret chokes back laughter. "Actually, I was going to say, 'I just thought you'd want to keep him in line.' David, I mean. But since you brought it up …"

Emma feels the heat rise to her cheeks, and fixates on winding and unwinding Graham's bootlace from her wrist. "I don't."

"I never said you did," Mary Margaret replies gently, and returns to the dishes.

She doesn't, though. Have feelings for Neal, that is. She's just - confused - and caught up in too many what-ifs. Too many dreams of what her life could have been; what it should have been. She should have spent more time avoiding girl-talk with her mother and less time in jail, more time helping Henry with homework and less time chasing down this week's runner.

She should have spent her whole life sipping hot chocolate while she watches mother do the dishes.

Mary Margaret breaks the silence finally, dropping a cinnamon stick into an extra-large mug of cocoa before pushing it into Emma's hands. "If you want to talk about it-"

Emma cuts her off, smiling faintly. "I know where to find you."

iii.

"Do you need any help?"

Snow looks up from her work - all the dishes clean and dry except the pots and pans - to find Emma dropping onto her stool. "Don't be silly," she laughs, then wipes her hands on her apron. "I'm pregnant, not a child."

Emma offers her a small smile, leaning her cheek into her hand. "Fine, but don't blame me when your feet are killing you later."

"They hurt a lot less than they did with you," Snow shoots back, ready to follow up with a comment about the wonders of modern arch supports but, upon seeing Emma's faltering expression, elects not to. Instead, she smiles and turns to pull down a pair of mugs - the kettle already whistling (because of course she was prepared; mothers always know).

Emma is silent as Snow stirs in the instant cocoa mix (a small concession she's made in the neverending headache that is their lives) and cinnamon, then pushes a mug into Emma's hands.

"Thanks," Emma murmurs, and Snow takes one careful sip before resuming her work.

... ... ...

Postulate: Light moves at the same speed relative to all observers.

Emma doesn't remember much about her son.

She remembers his cry. She remembers the swell of her stomach beneath her palm; the way his tiny foot always managed to find her bladder in the middle of the night.

But that's all.

Now, he's ten years old. He's more than a tiny foot, more than the whisper of a thought lurking in the dark edges of her memory. He's a boy with hopes and dreams, with his father's hair and her penchant for finding trouble. He's real and right in front of her, pushing a lump of snow across the playground, building and building.

Mary Margaret slides onto the bench beside her. "They grow up fast," she says.

Emma offers her a smile in greeting and passes her a to-go cup coffee from Granny's. "You probably see it a lot. Being a teacher and all."

Mary Margaret frowns, her expression distant, as if searching for a memory just out of reach. "I suppose so."

"Up until he found me," Emma says, pausing to inhale the steam from her coffee. "The last time I'd seen him he was a - a baby. And -" she pauses again, suddenly struck with an unfamiliar pang of shame, and lowers her voice. "I barely even got to see him. I never even held him."

Mary Margaret is quiet at that for a long moment, and then she speaks softly, her gaze focused on her coffee. "I did."

Emma frowns.

"Held him, I mean. I held him. When he was a baby."

Something about that thought calms Emma's mind; as if perhaps giving him up really had been the right decision, that maybe this really is his best chance. That maybe this is what was meant to happen; that all along she was meant to wind up on this bench, sharing coffee with Mary Margaret during afternoon recess."It feels like a lifetime ago - that part of my life, I mean. But then sometimes it just feels like-"

Mary Margaret cuts her off. "Yesterday."

"Yeah," Emma sighs. "Like all that time is just-"

"Gone."

Gone. There really is no other way to put it. All that time - Henry's whole life - is just ... gone.

ii.

Snow remembers everything about her daughter.

In those briefest of moments, she'd committed every detail to memory - the weight and shape of the tiny thing in her arms, the little fingers that latched so fiercely onto her hair.

She remembers.

And though those precious moments seem as though they were yesterday, her baby is all grown up, with a baby of her own. But Emma is undeniably hers - she sees her chin there, she sees Charming's furrowed brow. It's her little girl twenty-eight years too big; her little girl and twenty-eight years lost.

She remembers her grandson too, though perhaps not as well.

He wasn't her grandson then; or rather, she had no way of knowing he was hers. She doesn't remember him the same way; doesn't remember him in terms of tiny fingers or the perfect fit of him in her embrace. No. Instead, she remembers him like loss; remembers the way her empty womb had ached for a child, the way her mind had reached for something just outside her grasp.

He's big now, too; so big that he's already outgrown this winter coat. Of course no child (or grandchild) of hers will be caught wearing a too-small coat, so she spends the better part of her afternoon ripping out the seams and re-pinning them, doing what she can to make it last the rest of the season.

"We could have just gotten him a new one," Emma says as she drops onto the other end of the bed. "You didn't need to do that."

"It's not any trouble," Snow insists, speaking around the pins she's holding between her lips. "He's just getting so - big." And so are you, she thinks, but knows better than to voice that thought. She's watched her daughter grow, though; maybe not in the physical sense but she's grown regardless. She's watched Emma's walls come crumbling down; watched her grow into a mother, into a daughter. She's watched her daughter grow - too much and too fast.

"Yeah," Emma agrees, flopping back against the mattress. "You were right, you know, when you said they grow up fast."

"They really do," she says, and when she looks at Emma sprawled across the bed, all she sees is a tiny bundle with her chin and Charming's brow. All she feels are tiny fingers tangled in her hair.

iii.

It's only been a year and yet everything has changed.

Henry's busy growing out of childhood, too old for codenames and secret missions now. He isn't the baby she'd given up; not the baby she'd fallen in love with despite all her assertions that she would not. He isn't the kid who stole his grandmother's credit card and ran away to Boston to find her; isn't the kid who believed that everything could be solved by magic and true love's kiss. He's nearly a teenager now, and soon he'll be sneaking out to visit girls; soon he'll be searching for magic in his own true love's kiss, and he won't need her anymore.

At least, that's what he'll say.

You never really stop needing your mother, Emma thinks. She still needs hers.

The new nursery is filled to the brim with toys and love, and she can't help but think of the ruined nursery in the Enchanted Forest. Unwittingly, she finds herself comparing the two rooms - wondering how to quantify something as immeasurable as love.

(This was her room once, and now it's divided neatly into separate spaces; one for her and one for Henry. One for the new baby.)

A lot of things have changed in a year. Her son has grown enough to not need his mother, while she's grown enough to know she still needs her own. And more still, her baby brother or sister has grown out of nothing (while she hopes her mother's heart has grown enough to love them both).

Henry helps David assemble the crib, and her heart aches at how grown up he looks with a drill in one hand and the instruction booklet in the other.

"They grow up fast," Mary Margaret says, her voice soft as she eases herself into the rocking chair to watch them work.

Emma swallows thickly. "Yeah."

... ... ...

Consequence: Time Dilation - Two events occurring at the same location in one frame will be separated by a longer time interval in a frame moving relative to the first.

She might not have remembered at the time - might not have recalled just how loved she really is - but Emma had felt the ache of loneliness this past year. It all made sense upon remembering - how sometimes she would pull down four plates instead of two, how she'd instinctively pour two mugs of hot cocoa while she was washing dishes, even though Henry was long since in bed. Just as her parents' love had drawn them together through the haze of the curse, somewhere deep down she knew she wasn't alone.

And now, she relives that year anew; sees every memory not as a single snapshot in time, but as a photograph torn at the edges - empty space the only indication that something was ever there at all.

She misses them.

Misses. Present tense, she thinks, because she hadn't missed them at the time, but she feels the ache of their absence almost retroactively; a twinge somewhat akin to guilt.

Mary Margaret interrupts her thoughts, clutching two tiny hats in her hand. "Which do you think is more gender neutral?"

Emma feels a pang of … something at that. She isn't sure quite what. "I thought we were here for paper towels?"

"We are, but - while we're here?" She smiles hopefully. "With how everything has been, we don't really have as many baby things as I'd like …"

"Yeah," Emma says tightly, and Snow can see her walls come up in the way she folds her arms across her chest. "Sure. Why not?"

"We don't - have to," Snow replies, putting back the hats and taking a similar posture as she pulls her coat around her growing midsection. "We can just - head home. The boys are probably making a mess of the kitchen anyways."

Emma clears her throat. "Hence the paper towels."

"Right," Snow says, redirecting her focus to the mission at hand. "Paper towels."

But tension still radiates from Emma's form, even as they make their way to the back of the drug store and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of generics. She supposes it's her own fault; after all, Emma hasn't been exactly forthcoming about her feelings on the new addition. She's never seemed quite upset, and yet …

And yet there's something lurking there, just behind those walls of hers, that Snow can't quite grasp.

In truth, she's still adjusting herself. She doesn't remember bringing this child into existence, doesn't remember the year she spent in her own world. She remembers fear and strength, bravery and loss. She remembers silently telling Emma that everything would be okay. She remembers letting go.

And now she has a second chance.

She can do things right this time. She can hold on and refuse to let go. She can have the family she's always yearned for; she can have Emma for good.

If only she could stop messing it up.

... ... ...

Consequence: Length Contraction - The length of an object in a frame through which the object moves is smaller than its length in the frame in which it is at rest.

Emma spends approximately two hours shopping for a card.

She's never bought a Mother's Day card before; never even really considered it. Mother's Day was a holiday for kids with moms. (And Father's Day was a holiday for kids with dads.) And Emma? Emma never fell into either of those categories.

Until now.

The pharmacy's selection is pretty meager as far as she can tell, and nothing seems quite right. It's the first Mother's Day card she'll ever get her mother and it has to be perfect. However, it doesn't seem this sort of pressure is normal. Sean Herman drops by (with little Alexandra on his hip) and offers her a polite smile before spending a mere five minutes perusing the selection. If only it were that easy, she thinks.

She wonders if it might be easier to find a blank card and fill in her own message (though she's never really been good with words). Maybe simply 'Happy Mother's Day! Love, Emma' or should she make it more personal? She could ask David …

That's probably for the best, she decides, and spends one last minute deciding between a card with a bird or a heart on the front (in the end, she chooses the heart) and turns to make a beeline for the checkout counter, bumping - quite literally - into her mother.

"Emma!"

"Uh - hi," Emma mumbles, clutching the card to her chest. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Neither did I," Snow replies, not failing to notice exactly which aisle Emma was leaving, or the red envelope she's holding suspiciously to her chest. "Were you-?"

"Just browsing," Emma says quickly.

"Uh huh," Snow hums, as noncommittally as she can manage. "I just came for - for some chocolate." She pulls a candybar from her basket, suddenly grateful that she'd picked one up on her way inside.

"You finished your whole stash at home?" Emma frowns.

Snow cracks; she can't stand the thought of lying to her daughter, even about something as trivial as greeting cards. "Actually," she begins, then pauses to worry her bottom lip between her teeth, "I was here to get you a Mother's Day card."

Emma blinks. "A Mother's Day card? For me?"

"Well, yeah," Snow smiles. "You are a mother, aren't you?"

Emma falters for a moment, and then hesitantly holds out a simple card, blushing fiercely. It's white with a single red heart on the front, and when Snow opens it, she finds nothing but white paper staring back at her.

"None of the others felt right, so I thought I would write something in myself," Emma explains quickly. "I just - hadn't figured out what yet."

"It's perfect."

"It's blank."

"It's perfect," Snow says again, swallowing back tears. It may be blank, she thinks, but perhaps it's just what they need. Where Emma sees a blank card, Snow sees potential; a clean slate.

A second chance.

... ... ...

Consequence: Relative Simultaneity - Two events at different locations that are simultaneous in one frame of reference will not be simultaneous in all reference frames.

As the baby's arrival approaches, Emma finds herself spending less and less time in the apartment, and more and more time at the station; more and more time on patrol. She tells herself that she's doing it for her parents. It's better for everyone if David has less to worry about, if he can spend his time caring for Mary Margaret instead of bothering himself with every little crisis that manages to ravage the town. She's doing it for them.

Except she isn't.

She's doing it for herself, she realizes one afternoon as she liberates some leftover pizza and comes face to face with the sonogram of her baby sibling on the refrigerator door. She's doing what she's always done - keeping a safe distance from any situation that might result in heartbreak. She's brought her walls up, blocking out any possibility of pain.

And as her best friend once told her, blocking out any chance of love.

Really, she realizes, she's hurting everyone - herself included. Every time Mary Margaret has tried to involve her with her sibling's impending arrival, every time she's reached out and tried to bridge that final gap, Emma has taken one step forward and then turned and run as far and as fast as she could possibly go.

She isn't angry, doesn't feel betrayed. She loves her parents, and counts herself lucky to have her mother as her best friend. But while she's done her best to smile and watch as her family busies itself with rocking chairs and nursery wallpaper, she hasn't come to terms with what this baby means to her. She hardly knows how to be a daughter; she can't possibly learn to be a sister at the same time, can she?

She takes a long look at the sonogram, tracing the outline of the baby's head, of one tiny foot, and she can't help but think of Henry.

"Emma, honey?"

She freezes.

"Don't you think we should talk about - it?"

Emma turns, and Snow can just tell. Maybe it's mother's intuition - something she'd long thought she'd been unfairly denied - or maybe it's the way Emma's eyes definitely dart to the rounded curve of her belly. Snow can tell.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Yes," Snow insists. "There is. I just - I just don't know what I'm supposed to say." Emma is quiet, and she takes that as consent to continue. "I can't say 'I'm sorry' because I'm not. I can't even tell you how it happened because there's a year of my life missing. I can't even promise that nothing is going to change, because the last thing I want to do is break another promise to you." Emma remains silent, though her steely indifference is crumbling - carefully constructed composure tearing at the seams. "There's nothing to say, but I still think - we should talk about it."

Emma's voice is soft. "What do you want me to say?"

Snow takes a deep breath, the moment held endless as mother watches daughter, and sees her own fear reflected back. "Anything," she whispers.

But Emma says nothing.

No, just like she said, there's nothing to say. Instead, Emma reaches out and presses her palm carefully to the gentle swell of Snow's stomach - the simple gesture more powerful than any words. Snow chokes, tries to swallow the tears - hormones, she swears - and then she feels a stirring within her, rising up to meet Emma's hand.

Emma laughs softly. "He's kicking," she says, an edge of awe to her voice.

Snow smiles. "He?"

"I can tell Dad wants a boy," Emma explains, sounding a little wistful as she shifts her hand.

Dad. One of two words that can cause Snow's heart to simultaneously swell and shatter. "He wanted you more than anything," she says firmly, and moves her hand to cover Emma's. "He still does. We both do."

"Good," Emma replies, smiling as her baby brother drums another tiny kick into the palm of her hand. "Because I still want you too."

... ... ...

Relativity: The concept that nothing is objective; that everything is measured as compared to something else.

Emma's family isn't normal.

But it's hers.

She's waited her whole life for a family, and now she has one. She has a mother and a father and a son. She even has a baby sibling due any day now. And though it may not be what she'd expected, it's more than she could ever ask for.

And it's hers.

So one day when Mary Margaret is resting and David and Henry are busy practicing their swordsmanship, Emma pulls the family tree from Henry's backpack and sits at the kitchen table, methodically pressing out the wrinkles and mending the little tears with scotch tape.

"Grandma," she murmurs, carefully cutting out an old picture of Mary Margaret before fixing it to the page, then does the same with a photograph of David. "And grandpa …"

There are others too - pictures of Neal and Regina and Gold - that she adds, then Belle too for good measure. She has to add a few lines, and even digs out one of Mary Margaret's old grading pens (because maybe color-coding will help). In the end, it's a mess, but it's full. And to think, just a few months ago it had been empty; just Emma and Henry against the world.

But it isn't done yet, she thinks and eyes the sonogram on the fridge.

The page is becoming cramped, filled to the edges with the most bizarre family tree she's ever seen, and yet somehow the sonogram fits perfectly, nestled against her own picture.

In the end, she realizes she didn't need piles upon piles of books to find her place in this family. No, at the end of the day, all she needed was herself.

She's just finishing hanging her work on the fridge, taping down the corners and torn edges, when Mary Margaret wakes from her nap and pads into the kitchen, one hand supporting her lower back. Emma bites her lip, watching her mother's expression as she blinks blearily at the fridge, and takes one long look at the family tree.

"I know," Emma says uncomfortably, "it's kinda stupid, but I just thought-"

And then Mary Margaret is reaching out and clasping Emma's hand tightly within her own.

... ... ...

Relativity. The realization that what you have is what you make of it.