Author's note: This story is mostly told from Emma's perspective, with a few chapters from Henry's point of view. The rating is currently T, but it'll go up at the very end (I'll warn ya).

At eight-fifteen in the morning, Emma Swan woke up with a raging headache. She'd slept extremely poorly all night, plagued by vivid dreams she couldn't quite remember. Thankfully, it was Saturday, she'd just successfully tracked down a fugitive, and she had nothing else on the slate except for a date with Walsh.

He'd called her up last night, unusually insistent about having dinner. She enjoyed seeing him, but she was frustrated; a headache sounded like a fake excuse to postpone the date, and she didn't want him to push her to come out anyway.

"Mom, are you awake?" Henry stuck his head through the partially open door.

"I am," she groaned. "Sorry, kid, I'm not feeling too well. Why are you up so early?"

"I had weird dreams last night," he said. He was twelve—still young enough to need comforting after particularly serious nightmares, but old enough to be embarrassed about it.

"I did, too, actually," she replied. "If you give me a minute, I'll make you pancakes for breakfast. I just need a minute; my head is throbbing."

"Okay," he said. "It's just—Mom, my head hurts, too."

She sat up in bed, which made the pounding in her skull momentarily worse. "Maybe we've both caught something."

"What, you think headaches are contagious?" he asked skeptically. "I'm gonna lie down on the couch if that's okay."

"Okay. I'll be there in a second. Get some water—that might help."

As she stood in the kitchen, making pancakes and washing down ibuprofen with some orange juice—maybe she just needed more electrolytes—Henry lay slouched on the couch, drinking the water she'd set down for him on the coffee table and watching a rerun of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He didn't seem to have a fever, and neither did she; they both just had splitting headaches after sleeping badly.

She coaxed Henry to the table for pancakes—she'd had enough trouble getting syrup stains off of the couch after the last time—but he only ate half his breakfast before returning to the sofa. She hadn't offered to make him hot chocolate with cinnamon—she hoped that drinking water or juice would help him feel better instead—and he had uncharacteristically neglected to ask for it anyway.

Something was really wrong. She could feel it in her gut.

When it had reached a more reasonable weekend morning hour, she called Walsh.

"Hey, sweetie," he said cheerily. "Ready for dinner tonight?"

"I'm sorry, Walsh," she said, "But I'm going to have to cancel. Both Henry and I are really not feeling well. I'm not up for dinner, and even if I were, I need to stay home with Henry."

"You're both sick? That's really bad luck. Are you okay? What are your symptoms?"

"Calm down, doctor," she teased. She rubbed one of her temples with her free hand. "Killer headaches. We'll go to urgent care tomorrow if we need to, but I just think we both need to stay in and rest. You understand, right?"

"Of course! I'm just worried about the two of you," he said. She smiled. "Listen, I've gotta run for the moment, but I'm coming over tonight with some of the best chicken soup New York City has to offer, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

"Walsh—" she began, but he cut her off.

"Emma, I care about you and Henry. Why don't you let someone else take care of the two of you for a change?"

"Okay," she said, recognizing that she'd been defeated. "See you around six?"

"Six is perfect. Tell Henry I say hi, and to pick a movie for us to watch tonight."

"I will."

"I love you."

"Love you, too."

"Walsh is coming over?" Henry asked from the couch.

"Is that okay?" He'd come over once, and Henry had seemed pretty cool with it. The two of them got along very well. But this time, Walsh had invited himself over, and Emma hadn't checked with Henry first.

"Yeah, as long as I can stay in my pajamas."

"Totally fine, kid. I probably will, too."

They passed the rest of the day watching episodes of Friends, talking about Henry's upcoming school projects, and playing Super Smash Bros. By the time Walsh arrived with soup, they were both glued to the TV, still dressed in pajamas, while Henry's Link practically destroyed Emma's Kirby. "This isn't fair," Emma pointed out. "You practice all the time when you play with your friends. I only get practice when I play with you."

The buzzer rang. "Saved by the bell, Mom," Henry said with a smirk.

"Let me help you with this," Emma told Walsh as he came through the door with plastic bags heavy with take-out.

"I got it," he said patiently. "Go sit down, you invalid. Henry, are you hungry?"

"Yeah, I guess," Henry replied, powering down the gaming console. "Thanks for bringing dinner, Walsh."

"It's no problem. I just wish you were both feeling better. I'd have liked to have gone out tonight," he added, flicking his eyes to Emma. She frowned;. who cared about one postponed dinner date? It wasn't as if they'd only recently begun dating, and a cancelled date indicated lack of interest. Hell, a week ago, she'd gotten an IUD; that was her way of acknowledging that she saw him as a long-term partner. It wasn't supposed to be an indicator that he should get a little clingier.

They finished dinner quickly; Walsh was a pretty fast eater, and she and Henry still had very little appetite. "Mom, I'm going to play Diablo—is that okay?"

"Sure, kid." She took another sip of her soup; it wasn't improving her headache any. She looked back at Walsh. "We can wait to watch a movie," she said, lowering her voice. "Besides, he's been a little listless all day. I'm glad he wants to play his favorite game."

"It's fine," Walsh replied. "Although, do you think maybe you and I could talk in private?"

"I guess. Hey, Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"We're going to talk on the roof. We'll be right back, okay?"

"Sure, okay." But he was already focused on his game.

Now regretting the decision to stay in her pajamas all day, Emma stuffed her feet into her winter boots and zipped up her warmest, puffiest coat. Walsh grinned at her attire; she hoped none of the neighbors saw her.

As she expected, it was chilly up on the roof, at least for someone wearing flannel pajama pants instead of jeans. "Is everything okay?" She asked.

"It's better than okay," Walsh replied. "There was just something I wanted to talk to you about on our date tonight, and I figured, hey, the date might be off, but we can still talk. Right?"

She chuckled nervously. "What, like a break-up talk?"

"Why would I have invited you to dinner at an expensive restaurant if I wanted to talk about breaking up?"

"Point taken." She crossed her arms and tucked her freezing hands into her armpits.

"Emma, I know it's only been eight months, but I really see a future for us. For all three of us. I know you've been searching for family your whole life, and … and I think I could be your family. Yours and Henry's." He knelt on the cold cement and pulled a ring from his pocket. "Emma Swan, will you marry me?"

Never in her life had she regretted wearing pajamas as much as she did in that moment. "Walsh, I … I'm really surprised."

"Well, I meant it to be a surprise, so that's good, I guess."

"Don't you think it's just a little too fast, though? I mean, it has only been eight months." She did see him as a long-term partner, but …

"Emma," he said, rising back to his feet. "I've known from the moment I met you that you were the right person for me. Why do you think I had your furniture order ready two weeks early?"

"Your commitment to excellence?" she guessed. He chuckled, but her guess had been a sincere one. She didn't particularly like learning that there had been an ulterior motive behind the customer service. And maybe he was exaggerating, but the idea that he'd immediately known he'd want to marry her was a little iffy.

"I know you think that I'm going to walk out on you—and on Henry. But I'm not Neal, Emma."

"I didn't believe Neal could abandon me until he did," she reminded him.

There hasn't been a day that's gone by that I don't regret having left you, Neal had said.

Wait—no he hadn't. Why did she remember him saying that?

"I understand," he said sadly. "I've always known you've had trust issues—it's part of what makes you the person you are. It's not a deal-breaker."

Try something new, darling. It's called trust.

"What did you just say?" she asked.

"That your trust issues aren't a deal-breaker," he said slowly. He continued. "Listen, Emma. It's okay if you need time to think about it. But you don't have to be alone. You don't have to raise Henry alone. You can have a happy ending."

Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a powerful thing. Her headache was getting suddenly worse. Who had said that to her?

"I just …" she struggled to find the right words amid the pain and confusion in her head. "I just want to make sure I make the right decision."

"I understand—you don't want any regrets," he said, a little sadly.

I should be overflowing with regret, but I'm not. Because it got me my son. A woman had said that about Henry, but that wasn't possible because she was Henry's mother.

Walsh was still talking, oblivious to her distress. "So it's okay if you need to take some time. I can handle it."

Perhaps you're the one who couldn't handle it. She recalled annoyance—thinking Oh really?—and a passionate kiss. But who had kissed her like that?

"Walsh, I'm sorry, this isn't a good time," she said. Maybe being proposed to was making her go crazy; that seemed pretty likely.

"Mom?" It was Henry, also dressed in pajamas, his winter coat, and boots. "Are you still up here?"

"Sorry, kid," she said, rubbing her temples. "We're just coming down now. Are you okay?"

"I remembered stuff," he said quickly. "Mom, I remembered Storybrooke."

"Story—"

Storybrooke. It all clicked. The headache disappeared. Storybrooke.

Mary Margaret. Regina. David. Neal. Hook. The Enchanted Forest.

It was like waking up.

"What's this about Storybrooke?" Walsh asked.

"It's too hard to explain," Henry said. "But Mom, I think it's back. We need to go back."

"I … I guess we do." She remembered now. She remembered driving off with Henry as Pan's curse descended upon the town, desperately hoping that Regina was wrong about their memories. She hadn't wanted to forget how she'd met her son, or found her parents, or made peace with Neal.

If Storybrooke's disappearance meant that they would lose all their memories of it, then the restoration of those memories meant only one thing: Storybrooke was back. Henry was right; they needed to go back and see what had happened.

"I don't understand what's going on here," Walsh said awkwardly.

"Henry's right," Emma said. She gave him a sympathetic smile. "It's too hard to explain. We're going to need to leave right away."

"Because of Storybrooke?"

"Yeah." She paused. "I don't think it would be a good idea for you to come with us," she said awkwardly. "It's just really complicated."

"It had better be complicated if you're considering my proposal one moment and then planning a road trip to Maine the next."

"You proposed?" Henry asked.

"How did you know we'd be going to Maine?" Emma asked.

He sighed. Emma quickly placed herself between Walsh and Henry. "You should have just said yes," he said bitterly.

"Well, I am really glad you didn't say yes," Henry said as Emma locked the apartment door behind them. "But it's a little disturbing that you dated him for almost a year."

"Kid, how was I supposed to know he was a flying monkey?" she asked. "You didn't know he was one either."

"I spent less time with him," Henry pointed out. "Where's my big suitcase?"

"In my closet," she said. "I'll grab it in a second."

She was still having trouble processing that Walsh had, right in front of the two of them, turned into a flying monkey. He'd scored a few hits, too, before Henry had tossed her a piece of metal piping he'd found on the rooftop, and she'd used it to hit Walsh so hard that he burst into a cloud of fur and feathers. One moment, a man she loved was asking her to spend the rest of her life with him, and the next, it was like being in an episode of Buffy.

She groaned; it was a little too similar. She'd slept with a monster! Thank goodness they hadn't had sex since she had the IUD placed; who knew what kind of flying monkey diseases the condoms have protected her from?

She grabbed the first aid kit from underneath the sink, swabbed the claw marks on her arm with some rubbing alcohol, slathered on antibiotic ointment, and then applied bandages. There was no way she was letting those cuts get infected.

She returned to her bedroom to grab the suitcases from the top of her closet. Henry had already laid out piles of clothing on his bed by the time she brought him his big suitcase; at this rate, he was going to be ready to leave for Maine tonight.

Back in her bedroom, she begun to sort through her own clothes. Late winter in Maine was relatively easy to pack for—boots, spring colors, and lots of layers—but how long would they be staying? Would they return to New York City, and if so, how soon? Setting aside the fact that her boyfriend had turned out to be a flying monkey who'd tried to kill them, their lives here had been nice. The most stress she felt on a regular basis related to difficulties in chasing down particular bail-jumpers, and Henry had nothing to worry about besides studying for his next math test. She might have only been his primary guardian for a year, but it felt like she'd always been his mother, and she wasn't really hankering to throw her son right back into the dangerous life they had back in Storybrooke.

But if Storybrooke was back, that meant that her parents were back. It meant that Henry's two other parents were back. If not for the crippling weight she felt on her shoulders every time she remembered she was the Savior, she wouldn't feel conflicted at all about wanting to return.

She grabbed her leather jackets from where they'd spent a year at the back of her closet and placed them in a suitcase. Like it or not, she was the Savior, and they were going back.