InsaneJournal

Who: Henry and Emma
What: Time for a talk
When: tonight!
Where: the park
Warnings: is angst a warning?




Henry had tried not to let what everyone had been saying get to him. He’d tried closing the computer and walking away once the conversations on Kenzi’s post had turned sour, but that was easier said than done. And when the conversation had suddenly stopped, he’d figured for a bit that maybe cooler heads had prevailed. Then he’d seen the conversation open on Emma’s laptop when she’d been busy feeding his sister and he’d seen that if anything heads had begun to roll with all the hate and anger that had been flung around.

It wasn’t as though he didn’t partially understand what everyone was saying or why they were feeling the way they were. Regina had done a lot of horrible things in her life. Some of them directly to him or in ways that hurt him even if she hadn’t meant to do so. He’d seen the hollow shells of a life everyone had lived around him and so he’d sought out Emma to help break the curse. And while he knew it was broken back home, it hadn’t been yet for him, and sometimes when he looked at those around him, he wondered if breaking it was really enough. None of them were ever going to be the people they were before that horrid magic had been forced upon them and it showed in the littlest ways. Or maybe people simply didn’t live up to the giants one built them up to when reading about them in stories.

The cold was starting to seep into his coat and he hunched his shoulders down, tightening the fabric a little closer as he turned the page of his book. There wasn’t anything about fairy tales in this. No wicked witches or long lost loves or ripped out hearts. Just a pig on a farm and a spider to save his life. He’d seen the movie--cartoon and live action--before but there was something about the way the words brought the world inside of the book to life that made it more real to him. Maybe it was because he’d lived so long with people ripped out from a storybook, with the pages inside of one telling him more truth than the mother who raised him did, that he felt a connection to words.

He knew he should head home or at least call to let them know he was alright. But he didn’t want to talk to any of them in that house. He knew he should have gone to the center and seen Regina like he said he was going to, but he didn’t want to see her either. He couldn’t stand any more apologies thrown his way. Didn’t want to look at her with all he’d read the others saying.

So he was just going to keep sitting on the bench and read until he couldn’t stand the cold anymore.