This story is and has always been for Goldfish. Thank you for this lovely, lovely prompt and for being so good to me every step of the way.

XI: Out of the Forest…

I:

She sat staring out the window, watching the rain come down in torrents across the foggy pane. When she heard her name repeated softly, she finally turned back to the too-white, too-sterile room and the vibrant, rosy-cheeked boy curled up in the chair beside her.

"Sorry, kiddo," She said, trying for a weak smile.

"I was saying that even though for you, you were gone for like almost a year, but here it was only like two weeks. I think it's because you were kind of here, keeping the Curse from coming back entirely, but you were so far away that you couldn't stop it from at least slowing things down."

"...It's as good a theory as any," She said finally, but there was no heart in her voice.

Henry bit his lip, expression suddenly saddening. "...Are you okay?"

"I was gone a long time. I... lived a life, there, Henry. There were people... There was someone..."

"Someone you want to go back to," He finished. She could hear her own hollow tone in his words.

"It's hard to explain."

"I'm sorry," He said softly. "None of this is ever fair, especially not to you."

"Henry..." She reached for his hand then, closing it around his, lacing their fingers together. The memory of the last time she had held someone's hand like this hit her like a brick and she curled her arms around herself, pulling away from him.

"Emma?" He asked, sitting up straight in the chair.

"I never even got to say goodbye..." She whispered.

They both sat helplessly in the hospital room; the only sound that of the rain beating on the window, one with a broken heart and the other without much hope.

II:

In the weeks that passed, Emma's body improved, but her mind remained mired in a sorrow she couldn't even begin to articulate. Only Henry knew where she had really been during those weeks her body had been lying here in a coma, and she could not even begin to explain to a ten year old child that she had somehow gained and lost him a brother, leaving behind the only man she had ever been sure she truly loved.

As she remained here, solid and conscious and real, in Storybrooke, she began to realize her memories were already spotting and fraying around the edges. Henry suspected it was because of the Curse, of course - its design stripped the Fairy Tale Land's citizenry of their proper memories, memories of those woods and those places and those lives. She wondered if, in time, she would come to remember nothing of that place, instead believing the lie that she had been unresponsive and silent here in this hospital. It might have made things easier, but she fought it every step of the way.

Each day became an endless litany of the life she had left behind - a cataloging of her actions, her thoughts, her senses. His warm, hesitant smile as he reached for her. The brush of his hand across her back, the sharp pain in her stomach from the baby's strong kicks... The feather-soft kiss to her brow each morning when he woke to find her still beside him. She felt tears prickling at her eyes when she thought of how he must wake now, alone again in a cold bed, left only with his pain and loneliness to hold him.

She heard it then, a sound she would know anywhere, one she knew as well as her own heartbeat – the gentle tapping of wood against the floor, a gait that was unique to one person and one person alone.

Emma turned away from her window when he entered the room.

He wore a black suit, as always, and the purple shirt she had come to associate with his more introspective and mercurial moods. He leaned on his cane with one hand, and in his other, he held a bouquet of flowers, pink carnations, bright against his dark clothing.

"...How are you feeling?" He asked softly. His accent seemed subdued, more sibilant. The uncertainty in his voice, so alien in this man, made her heart twist.

"I've been better," she murmured.

"I suspect that's true." He placed the flowers on her bedside table, ignoring the low table at the foot of the bed containing her other gifts. "May I?" He asked, indicating Henry's chair with the flick of one wrist.

She nodded, unable to speak over the tightness in her chest.

He sat beside her, cradling his cane between both hands, simultaneously gripping the wood and wringing his hands against it. After an indeterminable silence, she looked up at him, realizing his eyes were as wet and shining as her own.

His hair was straighter, his face more lined. His hands were the same, blunt cut nails, calloused knuckles, still delicate despite their size. She swallowed the lump in her throat as the moisture in her eyes stung harder than ever.

"When we first met... You told me Emma was a lovely name," She said softly.

He pulled his left hand away from his cane, reaching up to rub his own shoulder briefly. Finally, he nodded, smiling hesitantly. "...And so it is."

"you and I…

side by side…

we are the next time around."

-Vienna Teng, In Another Life

Thank you for reading Time Around. There will be a sequel.