Once Upon a Time 1. Brandon

**A/N: New story! I've been inspired by Korey Cooper of Skillet, Lacey Sturm, who formerly of Flyleaf, and of course, God gives me the courage to write this. **

**Regular italics: Mary Margaret**

** Bold italics: God**

_I had a dream that we were dead; But we pretended we still lived_

I looked into his tiny newborn face, overjoyed that he looked like me and had none of the harsh features of his father. I was sore beyond belief; my hips were too narrow for childbirth to be anything less than excruciating. And I had been in labor for over nineteen hours. For a sixteen-year-old girl who was alone in the world, this was a bit overwhelming.

So overwhelming that it took me several seconds to realize my son wasn't crying.

His green eyes, exactly the same color as mine, were slowly dulling as he suffocated.

"RUBY!" I screamed, my voice cracking in desperation. I could hear a sobbing sound filled with sorrow and disbelief, and it took me a second to realize that awful sound was coming from me.

This couldn't be happening.

My son waved his tiny fists in the air as I laid him flat on the floor, opening his mouth in a feeble attempt to get air flowing to his lungs. His face was an alarming shade of purple, and it was slowly turning dark blue.

I began to pray to God, even though I wasn't entirely sure there was one. _Please God; don't let him die. Haven't You taken enough from me? My parents, my friends, my life, and my innocence? Please. Don't take my son from me. Please._

There was a clattering sound and I dimly recognized Ruby kneeling over the baby, pushing on his chest with her middle and index finder. CPR. She was performing CPR on my baby and he wasn't even five minutes old. I tried to move, tried to make myself help her, but I found that I couldn't. Some unseen force was holding me back, making it impossible for me to move.

_ I HAVE TO SAVE MY SON. YOU ARE __NOT__ GOING TO TAKE HIM FROM ME._

That was when I passed out.

_** Trust me. This is what is best. Don't doubt me, Daughter. This is what is best. This is what is best. **_

_ No it isn't. Having my son alive is best. How can you know what is best for me? You don't even know who I am. _

_**I'll always be with you, Mary Margaret. Come to me with your pain and burdens. You don't have to go through this alone. I'll carry your burdens for you. **_

_ Whatever._

_**I love you.**_

_ No you don't._

I hoped I was unconscious. How could this conversation even be happening if I was awake? How could any of this be happening if I wasn't dreaming? This was all a dream. I hadn't gone into labor yet. My baby wasn't dying.

Right?

Wouldn't it make more sense if I were dreaming? Wouldn't life be easier to tolerate if this was all in my imagination?

I began to register sounds. There was a soft sniffling noise that sounded pretty close to me. Then I felt the cold tile of the bathroom floor underneath me. My stomach hurt. It felt like I had been stretched and pulled from one end of the earth all the way to the other end. The events of today slowly started coming back to me.

The contractions had started at exactly 12:03 in the morning. I had woken Ruby up, feeling both excited and terrified at the same time. She had immediately made me lie down on the little cot we had set up in her large bathroom (Ruby is a _bit_ of a beauty fanatic) and ran upstairs to get Granny.

Granny was awesome. She had taken me in when nobody else would. My parents had kicked me out of the house when they found out I was pregnant because "Blanchard's are _not_ a part of _that_ crowd".

Later that night, I had come to Ruby and Granny with a bag full of clothes, not entirely sure where to turn or who to go to. And they had actually offered me their spare room. It had been too good to be true.

They had helped me find a female gynecologist because Ruby knew I wasn't about to go near a male. Not after what had happened.

"Mary Margaret? Honey, please, _please_ wake up." Ruby's gentle voice managed to shake me out of my half-asleep state.

I groaned and tried to roll myself over so I could sit up. She helped me, putting her hands on my back so I would have something to lean on. She knew I couldn't hold myself up.

One glance at her tear-filled eyes and I knew that he was dead. I knew that the tiny baby I had held in my arms for thirty seconds was no longer mine. I started crying and curled myself into a ball, ignoring the stabbing pains that shot through my body.

Dead. My baby boy was dead.

I wasn't one to get angry. I felt like that weighed me down. So I usually shoved all my problems into a tiny box in the back of my head and tried not to think about them. That box held my problems at bay until May 17th, 2009, when that man had unleashed a world of pain and horror and sorrow on me that I had never experienced in my entire life.

But right now, I wanted to punch something. I wanted to force my pain upon someone else, _anyone_ else, so I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore.

_**I'll carry your burdens for you**_.

The voice that had come to me when I was unconscious spoke again, stronger and more powerful than before.

But I wasn't about to give my pain to that voice. For some reason, I felt that its words were too true for me. It was too pure and I couldn't bring myself to taint it. _Not good enough_, I thought. I'm not good enough for that voice.

My pain was my own. I could handle it.

"Wh-where is he?" I asked, and the tears started flowing again.

"Granny," Ruby said, "she has him downstairs in his crib. She took him there after…"

"After what?" I said, my voice sharp and insistent. I had never used a tone like that before. I wasn't entirely sure if I liked it.

She cleared her throat, like she was forcing herself to talk. "He didn't have any air, Mary Margaret. The CPR wasn't working. You had already fainted, so I put him in your arms until...well, until he…died."

I passed out again.

When I woke up this time, I was in my bed. I was wearing one of Granny's big nightgowns and it was the softest thing I had ever felt. I heard a slow creaking sound, like someone was sitting in the rocking chair that I had put in the far corner of my room so I could rock the baby to sleep.

The anger from before had completely left me, but now I felt a horrible emptiness that made me long for sleep again.

"Is this my fault?" I asked, knowing that it was Granny who occupied the chair.

"No, child." She was sure and calm, as always.

"How can you be sure? I wanted to have him here. If we had been at a hospital, maybe they could have saved him. I could be holding him right now, Granny. It is my fault! I know it is!"

"He would have died whether we were in a hospital or not. If God wants something done, then it happens."

And suddenly I was furious at her. How could she mention God at a time like this?

_**I love you**_.

I shook my head, trying to shove the voice out of my mind without really knowing why I did because, right now, I really needed someone to love me. I needed someone to tell me that everything was going to be all right because I wasn't sure if I could make it through this.

_**Give your pain to me, Daughter.**_

_Go away._

"Can I see him?" I sat up and pulled myself out of bed, and then collapsed to the ground because my knees couldn't hold me up. Granny rolled her eyes at me and roughly yanked me up, putting my arm around her shoulders and half carrying me downstairs to the makeshift nursery we had set up a few weeks ago. There was the little dresser with tiny clothes in it, and the plastic bin with toys, and the baby bottles on the shelf. The basinet stood in the corner, its white curtains concealing the child that I was too terrified to look at. Granny dragged me along; making me put one foot in front of the other until I was close enough to move the curtains.

I had to stand there for a few minutes before I could gather up the courage to do it. When I did, I saw the most devastating, and somehow beautiful, sight I had ever seen.

My little baby boy was lying with his arms stretched way out to his sides, his teeny fingernails facing upwards. He was smiling.

How odd.

He's _smiling_. Why is he smiling? Shouldn't everyone be upset because he isn't alive? How could he be happy?

_**Trust me.**_

Maybe I could deal with his death if he's smiling. Because everything has to be okay if he's happy, doesn't it? Nothing could be wrong because my son is smiling. He isn't upset that he died. He's okay with it.

Well. If he is okay with it, then maybe I should be too.

Does that make me a bad mother?

I heard Ruby come up behind us, and she gave me a watery half smile, half grimace as she looked in the basinet.

"Are you going to name him?" She asked, keeping her voice soft and quiet, as if he were only sleeping and she was trying not to wake him.

Her question took me by surprise. In my long nine months of pregnancy, I had not once thought of a name. I had been so worried about making it through school and finding somewhere to live that a name had completely slipped my mind. But as soon as Ruby said it, I knew that I had to name him. I would not bury a nameless child.

I had a name in seconds, without even having to think about it at all.

"Brandon. His name is Brandon."

Granny looked thoughtful. "It suits him."

Ruby sniffled and said, "I think it's beautiful."

I started to cry again and nodded. "Brandon."

Brandon.

My son's name is Brandon.

**A/N: God is putting every single word in this story in my mind. This isn't my work; it's His. **

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	2. New Horizons

**A/N: Hello everyone! I loved the feedback for the last chapter, so please continue to review! It makes me smile. Also, this story is set in 2010. Not really sure why. It just seemed like a nice year.**

**Again, the bold italics are God.**

_With no regrets, we never bled; And we took everything life could give; And came up broken, empty-handed in the end_

A fresh start, or, as Ruby called it, a new horizon. It was something I desperately needed. Living here, in this house where Brandon died, was becoming too much for me. I couldn't bring myself to throw out the clothes I had bought for him. It brought back memories that were too happy for me to bear because sadness seems to have taken over my mind and body.

So, in other words, I have depression. And probably some post-traumatic stress disorder.

We had been searching for a town to relocate to. Granny said a small one would be best because "city people are too harsh for Mary Margaret's softness". She had whispered that to Ruby when she thought I wasn't listening, and I neglected from mentioning that she had grown up in Manhattan.

So after weeks of looking at tiny towns in New Mexico, I finally found one that seemed to call to me more than the other ones had, even if it was halfway across the country from where we were currently living. It was called Storybrooke, and it was in Maine. Ruby loved it as much as I did, and we persuaded Granny to buy this cute little bed and breakfast and a small diner that Ruby could manage. Granny had somehow talked the less-than-happy mayor into letting me clean her house during the week so I could make a little money.

The night before we moved, I was having trouble falling asleep. It was going to be bittersweet, leaving New Mexico. I had grown up here. Sure, my life wasn't the _best _in the world, but…Brandon was here. How could I leave him? What kind of mother was I to leave my son all alone, dead or not?

Then I mercifully fell asleep, but it was only to fall into a very strange dream.

Instead of my short pixie cut, my hair hung in a tangled mess halfway down my back. My clothes were old and extremely worn; the boots had holes in the soles and the pants had been patched so many times that I couldn't tell what color they had originally been.

"She's got to be here somewhere. She wouldn't have skipped out on me," said a male voice, doubt coloring his words.

All of a sudden I got this feeling that I was the 'she' that he was speaking of. I knew that if I didn't go out there, if I didn't show myself to this guy, then I would be missing out on…something. I couldn't figure out what.

So I followed my instincts and stepped through some bushes and into a large clearing. A man was standing in the middle and he looked so familiar, like I had seen him a million times before, but I couldn't place him.

_**Trust me. He will be put in your life for a reason, just as Brandon was taken out of your life for a reason.**_

The voice wasn't in my head anymore. It was all around me, loud and powerful, and it made all the hairs on my neck stand up. I started shaking and felt the need to hide from this voice, because it was too pure for me. But before I could, the man turned around.

He started to smile, a look of pure joy coming over his face. "Snow? I knew you'd come! We found each other."

"So we did," I said, and ran to him. He took me in his arms and immediately little alarms started going off in my head. This guy had arms like steel and they were wrapped around me. The last time something like this happened...

But I found myself hugging him back, and then I was smiling and laughing and crying happy tears because I had found him, even though I didn't know who he was.

When we broke apart, I glanced over my shoulder to see if there was a path for me to make a quick getaway if I had to. However, instead of seeing a place to run, I saw another man. This one was clothed in all white, he was barefoot, and he seemed to have wings made of fog floating on his back. His eyes were made up of so many colors, all swirling around and mixing together to create the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen. He smiled at me, and mouthed the word, _**trust**_. And then he was gone, his fog-wings swirling around him and taking him up into the sky.

_Trust_? Who was I supposed to trust?

"I've got something for you, Snow," said the guy, pulling my attention back to him. I blinked a few times and shook my head, trying to focus.

"What is it, David?" _David_. His name had flowed out of my mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world. He had very blue eyes and strawberry-blonde hair, with just a tiny bit of stubble on his face, which made him very attractive in my eyes.

"Your engagement ring, as promised," David said, digging around in his coat pocket and grinning at me like he had been wanting to give me this ring for a long time. "I know it's in here somewhere."

"How many pockets does that thing have?" I asked when he got frustrated and took the whole thing off so he could search more effectively.

"I can't find it! But I put it right here, in the pocket that fastens so it wouldn't fall out. How could it be gone?"

"What?" I whispered, and a feeling of devastation ran through my body because I got the feeling he had told me multiple times that he would bring me a ring, but it somehow never showed up.

_**Have faith.**_

When I woke up, I was more confused than ever. Why did I feel like I should know David? Why, in the dream, did I _act_ like I knew him? And what was that about finding each other? What did that have to do with anything? Why should I have been so upset about him not having an engagement ring for me? Why did he call me 'Snow' when my name was Mary Margaret?

Most important of all, who was the man with the foggy wings?

I shoved all those thoughts out of my mind. I had become very adept at that lately: pushing away anything I didn't want to think about, telling myself I would worry about it tomorrow.

My eyes wandered to the little jewelry box sitting on the floor beside the boxes of clothes I needed to put in the back of the moving truck we had rented. It contained a charm bracelet with only one charm: a baby with a tiny 'B' engraved on its foot. It was difficult for me to wear that bracelet. It meant that Brandon's death was a reality, and I wasn't sure if I could deal with that yet.

Maybe moving _will _be good for me.

**THISCLOSETHISCLOSETHISCLOSETHISCLOSETHISCLOSETHISC LOSETHISCLOSE**

There was no other word for it. Storybrooke was _adorable_. The apartment that Granny, Ruby, and I shared had a very feminine look to it, though it was extremely messy because there were clothes and furniture all over the place. I was excited because I was allowed to use my remodeling abilities on the place, which was something I had wanted to do since I was a little girl. I wanted to change an old broken down place that was new and shiny so everyone could see it.

"Mary Margaret. Please stop going off into your daydreams and _listen_ to what I'm saying. You don't have to have this job, you know. I don't have to hire you," said Regina, the mayor, as she glared at me from over the top of the contract I was supposed to be listening to her read.

"Sorry," I muttered, and tried to pay attention as she droned on and on about how she wanted her apple tree to be tended to. Of all the people in Storybrooke, the mayor seemed to despise me the most, and of course she's the one I have to work for. Every time she sees me, she runs off to her bathroom, muttering something about how I can't be the "fairest one of all". It's very bizarre.

"Do you see my lipstick? Look at this shade of red. When my apples are this color, they are to be picked, washed, and placed in the bowl I have in my home office. You are not to take any of these apples for yourself. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I said, and wondered why her apple tree was so important to her. They were _fruits_. It isn't like they're magical or anything.

"You work from precisely nine to five; not a minute earlier, not a minute later. You have half an hour for lunch, starting at eleven thirty and ending at twelve. If you bring someone with you to work, then you will be fired on the spot. Any questions?"

"Nope."

"Good. Now go to lunch, and I expect you back here at 12:00 on the dot."

"I'll be here," I said, and hurried to Granny's diner to see if she had food waiting for me like she promised she would. We had spent all of last night and most of the morning today cleaning the place up and getting it ready for customers. As I got closer, I saw that the lights were on and a few cars were parked outside.

Maybe I'll get to meet new people!

"I hope you have my lunch ready, Granny, because I only have like ten minutes to eat and then I have to go back to-" I stopped talking abruptly, snapping my mouth shut with a soft _click_ as my teeth clashed together.

Sitting on one of the barstools, drinking a cup of coffee, was my dream boy.

_David_?

No way.

I mean, I had heard of stuff like this happening before, but it was only in romance novels. Dreaming of a gorgeous man and having him appear in front of you in real life all in the same day?

I felt my knees go weak, and suddenly I was on the floor, looking up at the black-and-white tiled ceiling of the diner. There was a scraping sound as someone pushed one of the stools back from the bar.

"Are you okay? Here, let me help you up."

Blue eyes met mine, and there was a fluttering sensation in my chest that scared me because I had never felt anything like that before. He smiled a little and offered me his hand. I took it and he pulled me up, using arm muscle that I couldn't see but I knew was there because of the dream, because of how his arms enveloped me completely.

My brain seemed to be melting.

"David," he said, and let go of my hand. I kind of wanted him to hold it for longer, just to make sure that he was real and this wasn't my imagination.

"Mary Margaret," I replied breathlessly. He helped me over to the bar and sat me down on the stool beside of his.

"Pretty name."

"T-thanks."

He grinned, showing off a tiny dimple that I hadn't noticed in my dream. He was even more beautiful in reality. I felt something tugging on my new charm bracelet, and I instinctively moved my wrist closer to my body. David held his hands up in surrender, cocking an eyebrow.

"Sorry. It's a beautiful bracelet," he said, an apologizing tone hinted in his voice.

"It's all right. I'm a little protective of the charm," I whispered, proud of myself for not stuttering this time.

"Am I allowed to know why?"

I laughed, amazed that he managed to make me smile. "Not yet."

"I'll find out one day," he promised.

"One day," I agreed, though I wasn't sure I was agreeing to a sort-of total stranger. I _had_ met him before, only it was in a dream.

Once upon a dream.

**I know the "once upon a dream" quote is from Sleeping Beauty, but I couldn't resist. This story will be based off of the Disney movie **_**Snow White**_** (the cartoon), the fairytale **_**Little Snow White**_**, written by the Brothers Grimm, and, of course, **_**Once Upon a Time**_**.**

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Once Upon a Time, Romance, Spiritual