#found family? yes. mother son relationship? no. best i can give you is begrudging siblings

[kisiselintihar]

STOP CALLING NAHIDA WANDERER'S MOM STOP MAKING EVERY SINGLE FEMALE CHARACTER A CARETAKER OF MEN SHE IS A DEEPLY TRAUMATIZED INDIVIDUAL SHE IS NOT A FUCKING PARENTAL FIGURE TO HIM

[lilacmoon83]

Lightning in a Bottle

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

AN: Welcome to my newest Snowing story! I'm really excited about this one and blending the worlds of Once and Manifest. I did not classify this as a crossover, because that's not really what it is. This is a Manifest type story with mostly Once characters. I have kept a couple Manifest characters and a few minor ones may pop up. The notable Manifest characters I have kept so far are Vance and Olive as Snowing's daughter. You also do not have to worry about any love triangles for Snowing. That's not my thing and this will always be a Snowing story.

Another thing to note is that I've taken some liberties with the relationships as well. Most notably, Emma and David are siblings and they grew up with Mary Margaret, so Emma and Mary Margaret are very close as well. Due to Robert being a drunk after Ruth dies, David and Mary Margaret pretty much raised Emma while raising themselves. Another thing to note, Henry is in the place of Cal here as Snowing's son and Emma's nephew. Most everything else will become clear as you read. I hope you enjoy this new story and join me on another journey. This one will update on Monday nights. Chapter 1 tonight and chapter 2 next Monday. Then this one will go to bi-weekly updates on Monday nights. Please leave a review and give feedback! It is much appreciated and most know that I always respond to reader reviews at the beginning of every chapter. Enjoy!

Lightning in a Bottle

Chapter 1: Lightning Crashes

April thirteen, two thousand fourteen. It was a day that would be burned into her brain forever. For it was the day that her entire world collapsed to ruin.

The day had started out wonderfully. It was the end of their family vacation and she awoke as she always did. Ensconced in the arms of the love of her life.

Things had been difficult lately. Not really in their marriage; that had always been and always would be solid and wonderful. Love had never been difficult for them. It was everything else around them and with their son's cancer, it was taking its toll on them all. They were facing the very real possibility of losing him in six months to a year and they didn't know how they were going to get through it.

The trip had been her idea and she had begged him to go. They needed this time as a family, away from the reality of their day to day lives, and mostly away from the hospital.

After their first day there, he admitted right away that she had been right. For this short week, they had been able to almost forget about their son's cancer. Everyone had and it was a blessing. But today, they would return to reality and she was not looking forward to it.

They had spent the morning in bed, making love and marveling at how even after fifteen years of marriage, the passion hadn't dulled and their love had only grown. If only they weren't facing a crushing death sentence with their son. Even together, they weren't sure how they were going to get through it.

Inevitably, they eventually arrived at the airport to catch their flight and she couldn't know that was when their lives would irrevocably change forever.

To look at them, they seemed like a typical family, though she and they had always known that the love they shared was unlike most. Not very many people believed in true love anymore, let alone actually found it. But they had and it was prevalent and evident in all aspects of their lives.

But to the casual passerby, they seemed very typical. David and Margaret Nolan. The Nolan family. They had been married for fifteen years now and had twins, a boy and a girl. Then there was David's younger sister Emma, who had also been Margaret's best friend since they were all kids. Since childhood, Mary Margaret had been a part of their family and the three of them had always been thick as thieves.

Mary Margaret's mother had died when she was just ten and it was then that she dropped the Mary in her name and started going by Margaret. Her mother had always called her Mary for short and it became pretty painful then. Emma and David had always affectionately called her MM anyway, so Margaret was an easy transition for them. After her mother Eva died, her father, who was a wall street King, poured himself into his work even more than before and her nanny, Johanna, had mysteriously quit after Eva died. But Margaret spent most of her time at the Nolan house anyway at that point.

David and Emma's parents, Ruth and Robert, loved her as their own. Unfortunately, Ruth was killed not long after Eva, when Emma was only ten and it had been devastating. She had been a victim in a convenience store shooting. Robert, a former alcoholic, had fallen off the wagon at that point, leaving David to grow up faster than he should have and take care of his little sister. Fortunately, he had Margaret around to help him a lot. Emma always joked until this day that her brother and his wife might as well be her parents, despite only being a couple years older than her.

Knowing of her husband's drinking problem in the past, Ruth had left her children the life insurance money in a trust. A mysterious financial adviser saw to it that the money was used to make sure they were cared for and never lost their house. They had never met the financial adviser, as he had always sent a man named Jefferson to oversee their finances until David turned eighteen.

Robert had spent the rest of their childhood, mostly drunk and in and out of rehab. The final straw had come when he was arrested for drunk driving and David gave him an ultimatum that he either got help or they were done with him. He had been getting ready to graduate high school at that point and ashamed of himself, Robert finally got clean and saved himself from losing his family.

Things had been ugly between David and his father for a very long time, but since Robert hadn't touched a drop in almost fifteen years, they had rebuilt something of a relationship and Emma had too. But when she had issues and problems, it was always David and Margaret that she went to. Her same-age parents as she liked to joke.

Though home life had been a little rough at times, he knew he handled it better than most would have because of Margaret. They were that couple that had already been holding hands in eighth grade and despite all the razzing from their peers, their love had only grown as they did.

David and Margaret married during their college years, as they refused to wait any longer. Robert couldn't have been happier for his son and the young woman that he considered a daughter. He was still deeply ashamed of his past alcoholism and eternally grateful that they had allowed him to be involved in that joyous occasion. He had cried and told them that he knew Ruth was looking down and smiling upon them too. They knew it to be true too, for Ruth had adored Margaret as well.

Robert had come on the trip with them, ecstatic to spend that time with his family and especially his grandchildren. He spoiled them rotten and it was obvious that sometimes he was trying to overcompensate since he wasn't there for David and Emma the way he should have been. But none of them begrudged him that and the kids loved spending time with their grandpa. The trip was ending now though and reality was getting ready to set back in and he couldn't help but smile at his wife and sister, as the former prodded the latter about the marriage proposal that had sent his sister running away from home, even if it was only for a week.

"MM…" Emma complained, as Margaret brushed a hand through her blonde hair.

"Say yes to Killian...he loves you and not everyone finds true love. Your brother and I did and we want that for you too," Margaret said. David looked up from the magazine he was flipping through to give her a smile that had her shooting him a glare.

"She's not wrong…" he chimed in.

"Shut up," Emma complained.

"Killian Rogers loves you...you should be running to the altar. We did," Margaret argued.

"You just want to plan a wedding and we are definitely not you guys. You two really are that all encompassing true love that seriously doesn't really exist anymore, except with you two, because you're weird," Emma argued. Denial and bluster were two of Emma's best moves.

"Okay, forget comparing yourselves to us, cause we are pretty amazing," Margaret said, casting a coy look at the man of her dreams.

"But love is love and you need to stop torturing yourself like you don't deserve happiness or something," Margaret told her.

"You know she's right," David agreed. She rolled her eyes. Sometimes their ability to be in sync and finish each other's sentences was endearing and sometimes, like now, it was annoying.

"How can you two be so infuriatingly optimistic?" she demanded to know in frustration.

"I ended someone's life...how can you think I deserve happiness after that?" Emma murmured. He watched affectionately, as his wife put her arms around her sister-in-law.

"It was an accident," she reminded her.

"It doesn't change the fact that someone is dead because of it," Emma reminded her.

"Maybe...but denying yourself happiness isn't going to bring that person back. You have to forgive yourself so you can heal. And take it from two people that know...love can heal anything," she said, as her emerald eyes met her husband's cerulean ones. He knew she was speaking from a place of hope. Hope that they could get through what might be ahead for them with their son.

And with that thought, he cast a loving glance at their twin children. Olive and Henry. They were ten now, but whether or not Henry was going to reach eleven was in serious question and weighing on them all heavily.

It was that moment though that Margaret would later recall as the moment that would change her life forever.

"Attention passengers. Flight 23 is overbooked. We are offering vouchers to anyone willing to take a later flight to New York," the announcement came.

"Whoa...that sounds like a great idea," Emma said, as she jumped up and headed for the counter. Margaret sighed.

"I'm not sure she should be alone," she said, as she bit her bottom lip.

"You have that teacher-in service early in the morning," he reminded her.

"I know…" she said dejectedly. He rolled his eyes and got up.

"I'll stay with her," he offered and she smiled up at him, before tugging him down by his collar so she could kiss him.

"I love you, my Prince Charming," she cooed in his ear and it always made him get shy. She had been calling him that since they were just kids and always told him how well it fit him.

"If I'm Prince Charming...that makes you my beautiful, fair Snow White," he said, as she watched him follow Emma fondly.

"Mom...can I stay with Dad?" Henry asked anxiously. She glanced at her husband and he smiled.

"Yeah, we can have guy time and your mom can have girl time with Ollie. We'll only be a couple hours behind you," he said.

"Okay...go on," she urged, as she kissed his cheek.

"Guess you and I can watch one of those sappy rom-coms that the boys hate when we get home," she said, as she nudged her daughter. Olive smiled.

"Okay...but if I'm being honest, I kind of like the super hero movies like Dad and Henry," she admitted. Margaret chuckled.

"Well, don't tell them...but me too," she agreed.

That had been it then or so she thought. She had kissed her husband and her son goodbye, expecting to see them in just a couple hours. But the plane carrying her husband, her son, and her sister-in-law disappeared, shattering her world and sending her into despair. She was a shell of her former self and spent months in bed. She felt so bad once she had finally managed to pull what was left of herself together too. Her father-in-law had stayed with them and pretty much cared for Olive and her the whole time. But he didn't seem to hold it against her and though she knew she would never be the same again, she managed to return to a bit of a normal routine six months after their plane went missing. She apologized to her daughter for forgetting her and they resolved to be a united front from then on, facing life without the rest of their family together now.

Her father-in-law returned home and then it was just her and Olive most of the time, though he checked in frequently. She returned to teaching her fifth grade students and what people would consider a normal routine. But she was just going through the motions at that point.

Naturally, after a couple years, the people around her started to drop hints that perhaps it was time for her to move on. It was subtle at first. They would drop hints that they knew someone that would be perfect for her and that they could introduce her. She declined at first. She had already met the perfect person for her and he was gone now.

She knew people started to think she was weird. After all, people moved on all the time after they lost their spouse. They just didn't seem to accept or understand that when she had lost David, it was like he had taken half her heart and soul with him. She knew what it sounded like so she never told anyone that. They could never understand the depth of her love for him.

But to keep people off her back about moving on, she started agreeing to have coffee or dinner with some prospects. She hated it all. If this was dating, then she wanted no part of it. Dating David had never been at all like this was, but then they were always so insync that it had never been awkward like it was with these other men.

It never went much beyond one date. She gathered that most of the men got the drift that she just wasn't into it. But there had been one doctor that she agreed to a second date with. Victor Whale, but that had ended up being a disaster. Their first dinner date had been amiable enough and then she had agreed to go for a drink with him after work the next night. But a little alcohol had resulted in her dissolving into her grief and she had been a mess. To his credit, he hadn't left and let her talk and cry on him. But then she learned why he had stuck around and he was kissing her soon up against a wall.

In her inebriated state, she had even made it all the way back to his place with him. In her grief, the idea of being held by a man again was very appealing. But in a moment of clarity, she had realized what was happening and how much she would later regret a one-night stand. She may have been a widow now, but her heart was still very much married to a husband that was lost to her.

Or so she thought, until November eleventh, two thousand and nineteen.

The plane was back. Flight eight two eight was back, five and half years after disappearing without a trace. Five and a half years after disappearing and shattering her world. Five and a half years after stealing her heart and soul, irrevocably fracturing her for the rest of her life, or so she thought.

Olive could only stare at the television screen in disbelief, as the news story broke and wasn't surprised when the glass in her mother's hand slipped from her grip and shattered on the floor. She gripped her phone and her hands shook, as she attempted to call Robert. Olive took pity on her and took the phone.

"Mom…" she said.

"Can it be?" she uttered. Her daughter smiled.

"I hope so…" Olive said, smiling at her. Her daughter had always insisted that her brother was out there and by extension, her father. The twin thing. But was it really true? Did she dare to hope that a miracle had happened?

"Remember what Daddy always told you…" she said.

"I will always find you," she could hear his voice in her head. He had been telling her that since they were just kids on the playground and he had never once broken that promise.

"I'll call grandpa," Olive said, as she dialed him, but it proved to be unnecessary, as Robert arrived at their door three minutes later. He had jumped in his car the moment the news broke and it was almost like she was in a trance, as he drove them to the airport. She didn't dare believe it yet; not until she saw them with her own eyes. But if it was true...then it was a true miracle and she was one of very few people in existence that was about to get not only a son and a sister back. But the love of her life; her soulmate back. If this was true...then she promised she would never ask God for anything else, because he had just answered every single wish she had ever asked for...