Title: A Different Story
Summary: David had said he wasn't going to push but here he was, pushing. Not as strongly as her mother, perhaps, but still pushing. And the pushing only continued when he asked, "Can I tell you a little story?"
Spoilers: None, really. Set mid-season 2.
Rating/Warning: K+, for language, mostly. Family angst/fluff, as per usual.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I can pretend all I want, but none of it is mine.
Author's Note: Xelbie asked me for a Charming/Emma one-shot, and of course, I was more than happy to oblige! Because Charming/Emma is so much fun and I really wish they had more screentime. This came out a bit angstier than I was really intending (these two have a tendency to write themselves a lot ... it's kinda weirding me out, to be honest ;)) but it was still a lot of fun. Feedback is a happy! Enjoy. :)
You know, Emma Swan thought bitterly as she threw the covers off her legs, if Snow White and Prince Charming and Rumpelstiltskin can be real, why can't the damn Sandman? She'd been tossing and turning for close to four hours now, and this was … what, the fourth night in a row? Or maybe the fifth. Her nights were all starting to bleed together.
Of course, after almost four hours of trying, she was now too frustrated to sleep. Time to get up for a little bit, then, to give herself a chance to calm down. She climbed out of bed and tiptoed over to Henry's daybed to make sure he was okay. The poor kid's nightmares had tapered off somewhat since she and her mother had returned from the Enchanted Forest but they hadn't gone away completely.
Her son's sleep looked peaceful – at least for the time being – so Emma felt comfortable leaving him for a few minutes. She quietly descended the stairs only to stop short when she spotted her father sitting on a stool at the kitchen island and nursing a mug of cocoa.
For the briefest of moments, she debated going back upstairs. The automatic panic struck her as kind of stupid; he was her father. It wasn't like he was a stranger. Plus, he looked up and saw her before she could even take one step back up the stairs, so the whole internal debate became moot. "Uh, hi," she greeted, the panic turning into embarrassment at having been caught going downstairs in the middle of the night.
Of course, he was awake in the middle of the night as well, so why she was embarrassed was beyond her.
He bypassed a greeting entirely. Concern instantly contorted his features the second he caught the frustration on hers. "What's the matter?"
All right, that's going to take some getting used to, Emma thought as she gave him a halfhearted shrug. She didn't know how she felt about someone knowing that something was wrong just by the look on her face. "Nothing. Can't sleep." She nodded towards his mug of cocoa. "I take it you can't, either."
David shook his head before standing from the stool. He crossed over to the stove and began pouring his daughter a mug of cocoa of her own. "I haven't really slept well since ..."
"Since you awoke from the sleeping curse," Emma finished for him. He nodded almost sheepishly, causing Emma to shoot him a tiny, understanding smile. "Neither has Henry."
"And you haven't slept well since you returned from the Forest," he added, handing her the mug complete with cinnamon stick, whipped cream, and a dusting of cinnamon sugar. Apparently, middle-of-the-night cocoa required all the bells and whistle. She accepted the mug while at the same time opening her mouth to protest his statement. He cut her off with a gentle smile. "You've been up almost as much as I have these past few nights."
Aw, crap. He'd noticed. Damn it.
No, she hadn't slept well since returning from the Enchanted Forest. Being there had brought up far too many long-buried emotions. Being there, separated from her kid and her father and not knowing if she was ever going to get back to them. Being there made her realize that everything she thought she knew was backwards. It had all been too much.
No wonder sleep hadn't been coming easily. Her poor brain was working overtime just to make sense of … everything.
"I'm not going to push, Emma," David said softly, "but if there's anything you want to talk about ..."
Emma shook her head. No, there was nothing she wanted to talk about. Needed to talk about, probably, but wanted? Hell no. Not at almost three in the morning and not until she could get a handle on it herself.
Disappointment flickered in his eyes for a split second but covered swiftly with a smile. He sat back down at the island and after a moment, she followed suit. They sat in silence, sipping their cocoa.
Eventually, David said, "Snow hasn't been very forthcoming, either. Do you mind if I ask what it was like?"
"What, the Enchanted Forest?" The pain and uncertainty on his face as he nodded made her breath catch in her throat. It struck her a moment later that David was homesick. Storybrooke may have been the only real home Emma had ever known, but it wasn't his home.
Which was why she couldn't tell him the truth. How could she tell him that his home was destroyed? "I don't really remember. I was more focused on getting back here than I was exploring there."
He smiled sadly at her. "Emma, you can tell me the truth."
Crap. Emma didn't do difficult news. She never knew when a situation required quick-and-done truth, like ripping off a Band-Aid, or when a situation required delicacy. Something about the look in father's eyes told her the Band-Aid option might be better here. "It's a lot different than you probably remember. It's … the curse destroyed it. It doesn't look enchanted anymore … more like a war zone."
He winced, which made Emma wince. Clearly, this was why her mother hadn't said much, either.
"Did you see the castle?"
She nodded. "The curse destroyed it, too."
David swallowed hard and was quiet for a long moment, so long that Emma began to get nervous. Had she said the wrong thing? Should she have gone with delicacy instead of the Band-Aid? Then, he spoke, his voice soft and trembling with emotion. "The curse destroyed a lot of things. A lot of things. But that doesn't mean those things are beyond repair."
Why did Emma get the feeling that he was no longer talking about the castle or even the Enchanted Forest? She gripped her mug in her hand and took a long, deep breath through her nose. Her fight-or-flight instinct was kicking in, and she needed to control it. It was too late for a fight and it would only hurt him if she fled.
He'd said he wasn't going to push but here he was, pushing. Not as strongly as her mother, perhaps, but still pushing. And the pushing only continued when he asked, "Can I tell you a little story?"
A story. Stories were not good. Judging by the shift in conversation, Emma had a general idea of the story he wanted to tell her. She just didn't know if she wanted to hear it.
Well, that wasn't quite true. She did want to hear it. Whether or not she could handle hearing it, though … that was the question. It was late. She was tired and frustrated, and yet another emotional conversation wouldn't make her any less so.
When she looked up at him, the longing in his eyes made her heart skip a beat. He wanted so desperately to reach out to her, to be able to connect with her in a way he hadn't until now. They hadn't known each other all that well when he was David Nolan, and he hadn't even had a full day with her as himself before she ended up in the Enchanted Forest. She and Snow had had their time in the Enchanted Forest to get to know one another as mother and daughter. She and David had had nothing of the sort.
But, by some bizarre twist of circumstance – or, you know, insomnia – they did have tonight. It wasn't much, but it was a start … if only she would allow it. She tore her gaze from his, stared down into her cocoa, and nodded.
To her surprise, he pushed himself up from the stool and carried his mug over to the small sofa in the living area. Frowning, Emma followed him. She stood in front of the sofa, her eyes questioning.
"You're supposed to get comfortable for story time, right?" he asked her a soft smile.
Emma smiled back despite her misgivings. She eased down on the opposite end of the sofa and turned sideways to face him, holding her mug with both hands. "Yeah, I think you are."
He waited a moment to let her get settled, sipping his cocoa to bide the time. When she stopped fidgeting, he said, "Once upon a time in an enchanted wood–"
"Seriously?" Emma asked, arching an eyebrow at him.
"Hush. I'm trying to tell a proper story here." She wrinkled her nose and let out a playful groan, causing him to chuckle. "Once upon a time in an enchanted wood, there lived a young King and Queen who had recently regained rightful control of their kingdom from the Queen's wicked stepmother. They had a flourishing kingdom, happy and loyal subjects, and wonderful friends, but they couldn't help but feel like something was missing. Something that was keeping them from being truly happy, truly complete."
The expression on his face had grown gentler as he'd spoken. From the sheer amount of adoration in his eyes as he looked at her, she knew before he even said a word what was going to make the King and Queen feel complete.
A baby. Her.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to remain seated and to let him continue.
"One day, the Queen told the King something that filled that hole and filled them both with indescribable joy: they were going to have a child. Call it mother's instinct, call it magic, but somehow the Queen knew that the child was going to be a girl. The King and Queen were going to have a little princess. And in that instant, both of them knew that now, they were complete."
Aw, crap, she knew it. Emma stared down at her cocoa, mostly because she could feel her father's eyes on her. She didn't want to meet his gaze, didn't want to look him in the eye. It was too much … far too much.
Still, he continued the story. "The royal family may have been complete, but the Queen's wicked stepmother could not be defeated so easily. She enacted a dark and powerful curse on the land, a curse designed to destroy the lives of everyone and everything in its path."
She wanted to stop him, wanted to tell him that she knew how the story ended and he didn't need to tell her any more. No amount of storytelling could change the past. What was done was done, and nothing could make it better. Which was all well and good, except the words wouldn't come. Part of her – the part of her that was supposed to be that little princess, probably – wanted to hear it, even if the older, more cynical part of her had no such desire.
"The night the little princess was born was the night the Queen cast the curse on the land," he continued softly. "It was both the happiest and the most heartbreaking night of the King's and Queen's lives. They loved their little princess dearly, and they knew that had to do something to get her to safety. They couldn't allow her to be cursed along with them, nor could they allow the wicked stepmother's guards to harm her. There was a way to escape the curse, but the magic needed to do so could only protect one."
He stopped to take a deep breath, shoring up the courage for the next part. "The Queen kissed her princess goodbye and placed her in the King's arms. The King fought off the wicked stepmother's guards, protecting the princess against the thrust of their swords with a sword of his own. When he arrived at the magic portal that would take the princess to safety, the King gave his baby a kiss on her precious little forehead, placed her in the portal, and said goodbye, not knowing whether or not he would ever see her again."
To Emma's utter horror, tears were welling in her eyes. She blinked quickly to disperse them before they had a chance to fall because she was absolutely not going to cry over this.
"As fate would have it, the King did see his princess again, only when he did, she was no longer the precious little baby he'd sent away." His voice caught in his throat, and he had to breathe deeply to regain control. "His little baby had grown up into a beautiful woman. A remarkably strong, wonderfully fierce, amazingly loyal woman. The King was proud of his princess, prouder than she would probably ever be able to comprehend. And yet, every time he looked at her, he felt a pang of longing deep within his heart because she'd become all those things – and everything else that she was – without him."
A couple of tears had trickled down Emma's cheeks despite her best efforts to stop them. She swallowed hard while swiping at her cheeks to dry them. "That's not exactly a happily ever after, is it?"
"No," David agreed softly. "You know why?"
"Because happily ever afters don't really happen as often in real life as they do in stories?"
"No, because happily ever afters are endings. Our story isn't ending, Emma; it's just beginning."
Emma felt a sudden surge of anger at his words. No, he did not get to sweep all that time he'd missed under the rug by citing their time now as a new beginning. Those twenty-eight years may have passed in a blink of an eye for her parents, but for her, they'd been long, agonizing, lonely years, and they mattered. They made her who she was.
She'd had to raise herself and damn it, she'd done a fairly decent job, if she did say so herself. "You know what?" she said, clenching her hands tightly around the mug. "It's my turn to tell you a story."
The pained yet calm expression on her father's face indicated that he had fully expected this turn of events. "Go right ahead," he said, looking directly at her.
"The King and Queen may have saved their little princess, but they condemned her, too. While they were living under the curse where time had stopped for them, the little princess was growing up in a world that couldn't care less that she was in it. She grew up alone … so lonely and so confused and so unloved, and everyone who was supposed to help her only ever thought about what they could get from her."
David winced at her words, but Emma was too worked up to care. He should know what their decision cost her. He should know what her life was like. Her anger only grew as she continued. "The little princess couldn't understand why the two people who were supposed to love her more than anything else in the world had thrown her away, and she couldn't understand why no one else loved her, either. After a while, she began to think that maybe she was just unlovable. And after a while, she stopped believing in happily ever afters, because how could she possibly believe in something that her life had shown her time and time again didn't exist?"
She stopped there but only because her voice had begun to hitch in her throat and she did not want to cry.
Tears were welling in her father's eyes as well. "I'm so sorry, Emma. You have no idea how sorry we are. What you went through … that was not at all what we intended for you. It's not at all what we wanted for you. We love you so much, and knowing how much you've suffered guts us every single day."
He set his mug on the coffee table, leading her to do the same. "I won't apologize for saving your life when you were a baby," he said softly, "but I want you to know that what we did … it was our only option. It's not what we'd planned, it's not what we'd intended, but it was the only option we had. It was the only way to make sure you got away, that you were safe."
"I wasn't safe, though," she argued. "I needed my parents. I needed you. I know your backs were against the wall. I get it, I do. But I still spent my entire life alone. I still wondered every day what was so wrong with me that no one wanted me."
David's tears spilled over. "Oh, sweetheart, you were wanted. You were so very wanted and so very loved. I am more sorry than you will ever know that you didn't know that."
Emma wanted to remain angry, wanted to yell and scream and tell him that it was his fault that she hadn't known, but her fight was slowly leaving her. Now she was just tired and upset and … raw.
Her father reached out a hand to her and before she could stop herself, she latched on tightly. "We can't change the past, Emma, and we can never make up for those long years of loneliness and pain," he told her frankly. "The only thing we can do is try to move forward … if you'll let us."
She swallowed hard. Were the things the curse destroyed really beyond repair? Was her family beyond repair?
She fervently hoped not. The little princess may have stopped believing in happily ever afters but she'd never stopped longing for one. For the first time in her life, a happily ever after was within Emma's reach. She just had to be brave enough to leap for it.
David tightened his grip on her hand. "We should have been there for you, Emma, and if we could have, we would have. I know saying so doesn't change what you went through, but it's all I can offer. You mean the world to us – to me. Please don't shut us out. Let us help fill the hole that was left by our absence."
The tears that had been welling in Emma's eyes finally spilled over. Oh, his eloquence was so completely unfair. "Well, when you put it like that," she said through a self-deprecating sniffle.
Her father smiled at her before releasing her hand so she could wipe her eyes.
After regaining her usually careful control, Emma slumped back on the sofa. She was so tired now. David did the same, slouching to make himself more comfortable next to her. After a brief moment of hesitation, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
She tensed at the touch for the space of a heartbeat before relaxing into it. This was how healing began, wasn't it? Learning to accept comfort when it was offered, learning to let her family in, learning to trust that they weren't going to leave her like everyone else in her life had.
Learning to understand that they were here to stay, no matter what happened.
The notion was soothing, calming her troubled mind. And all of a sudden, she felt utterly exhausted. She squirmed against her father's grip, knowing on some basic level that she should get up and go back to bed before she passed out down here.
"Shh, it's okay," he whispered, running his hand up and down her arm. The motion was so soothing, so comforting. Part of her thought that it wasn't fair, but a larger part of her thought that it was perfect.
She shifted so that she was leaning more comfortably against him because holy crap was she tired. "You're going to be uncomfortable," she mumbled, her eyes closing despite her best efforts to keep them open.
"Doesn't matter. Just relax."
For once, Emma did as she was told. She tried to tell herself that she simply didn't have the energy to move, but that wasn't really true. Part of her – that little part that never stopped wishing for a happily ever after – wanted her father to hold her.
Maybe, just maybe, starting tonight they could write a different story. Maybe Emma could finally chase her happily ever after. Something told her that neither she nor her family would stop until she got it.