A/N: Set a couple weeks after the finale. Emma, Henry, Snow and James live at the apartment. Everyone's getting to know each other and become less awkward as a family. Please review to let me know what you think!
Emma sat down at the kitchen table, joining her unconventional family for a home cooked breakfast.
"Do you have any pictures from your childhood?" James asked, seemingly out of nowhere.
"What?" Emma asked, confused.
"Sorry if that's weird, or crossing a line or whatever, but do you have any photographs of yourself as a kid? I'd love to see them, since we'll never get to have those years with you" he explained.
"Once sec" Emma announced as she excused herself from the table. She returned a few minutes later with a single leather-bound photo album. She handed the rough looking book to her father with a smile. "There's not a lot, but there are a few good ones" She explained, smiling. Snow excitedly took a seat next to her husband. They shared a sweet smile with one another as they looked at the book, excited to explore its contents together and try to take part in the youth they had missed. A curious Henry jumped up from his seat and stood behind his grandparent's chairs, eager to see his mother as a young girl. James opened the book widely to its first page, angling his wife and daughter could both see the pages, Emma narrating each photo.
James was a bit disappointed to find the first photograph in the book, the youngest scene of Emma they would ever see, was of a five year old girl.
"No one really documented me when I was really young. This is the earliest picture I have" Emma apologized as if the lack of baby pictures was her own fault.
Snow smiled as she gently reached out to touch the photo, as if caressing the picture would somehow allow her to stroke the cheek of her 5 year old daughter.
"This was my kindergarten picture. My foster parents didn't want to pay for me to keep it, so my kindergarten teacher did. She told me I was going to want it when I was older." Emma explained. Her parents smiled at the kindergartener in the picture. She had on a wrinkled, baby blue dress that was clearly two sizes too big for her. "My foster sister did my hair in pigtails for me and let me borrow the dress. She was eight years old and knew how to braid- basically a hero" Emma said. Her parents absorbed the photo of the smiling blonde girl missing a front tooth before turning the page reluctantly.
"I'm seven in these ones. I lived with the Bennett's for two years. When Mrs. Bennett wasn't passed out drunk on the couch, she liked to indulge in some armature photography" Emma described. Snow and James looked at the two pages displayed in front of them, containing a total of 10 photos of Emma from age 7-8. Her blonde hair was usually pulled back into a loose ponytale, clearly the creation of a child. Her teeth were usually missing, and she was usually smiling despite the many visible bruised along her arms. Emma realized the injuries did not go unnoticed by her small audience, as she had hoped they would.
"I was a clumsy kid, if there was trouble within a twenty mile radius I could find it and make it ten times worse" She clarified with a laugh.
Snow and James smiled back at her, but they knew. She was lying through her teeth. No matter how clumsy a child is, bruises in the shape of a handprint were not a normal occurrence. They kept quiet, for Henry's sake. Snow made a mental note to call Emma's bluff later, when they were alone and could speak more freely.
"Who're they?" Henry asked, pointing to picture in which Emma stood with many young children.
"Those were the kids at the Bennett house in the summer of 1990. That's me, Brody's the kid whose shoulders I'm sitting on, and those kids next to us are Emmett, Randy, Caroline, and Ethan" Emma described as she pointed to the soaking wet children wearing bathing suits whose poor conditions matched that of her own. Snow noted that Emma's clothing seemed to consist solely of warn out hand-me-downs that weren't her size. James noted that the bruised Emma wore seemed to match those on the skin of the other children, and it made his blood boil. He wanted to kill the bastard who hurt those children. He couldn't even think of one of those children being his little girl.
Their attention was diverted to other pictures as Emma went through the album. There were pictures of her on school field trips, learning to ride a bike, holding up a fallen tooth while flashing her newly gapped smile, baking cookies with a grandmotherly foster mother, and doing a cartwheel on the front lawn of a small, beat up home. Though the pictures were few and far between, they still captured the years they had missed.
Each parent couldn't help but catalogue not only every feature that reminded them of themselves, but also every injury Emma seemed to acquire: bruises, a cut on her forehead that required stitching, a broken arm. Each injury had been explained away with a fake story of Emma falling off of a bike or out of a tree, but Charming and Snow knew the accidents were nothing of the sort. They easily decided Mr. Bennett must not have been such a nice man.
There were a few more pictures as they turned the pages, Emma narrating each photograph and the people in it. They watched as Emma's permanent teeth grew in, her rounded checks smoothed out, and her short, lanky body filled out into a tall, beautiful young lady. Her rectangular, childlike torso developed hips and the straps of a training bra could be seen in a few pictures.
Their little girl was becoming a woman.
Even though they knew how the story ended, the outcome of these pictures being the 28 year old sitting beside them, it was still odd to see the little girl in the photos grow into a woman's body.
Charming nearly shed a tear as he came across a photograph of Emma's homecoming dance her sophomore year of high school. Her hair was braided back in a way that reminded him of Snow's. She wore a dress that was shorter than he liked, but she looked beautiful none the less. She had her arm around an older gentleman, her foster father at the time. Emma told them how she had stayed with him for only four months, but instantly Charming was jealous of the man. Those were four months Emma should have spent with them, at the castle. It should be him in that picture, not some random man whose name Emma could barely even remember.
They combed through a few pictures of Emma's teenage years. Snow couldn't help but wonder who had helped Emma through these hectic times; who had taught her how to drive, given her 'the talk', been her role model?
Snow and James were disgruntled to find that Emma's high school days consisted of many terrible dye jobs and body piercings. Emma informed them the tongue, eyebrow, and nose piercings came out when she turned 18. Apparently being old enough to have such piercings took away the fun of having them.
Charming bit back a pained cry as they turned to a photo of Emma and girlfriend of hers, lifting the back of their shirts enough to reveal tattoos on their lower backs. Emma visibly cringed at the photo, clearly wishing she had removed it from the book before showing her parents.
"You have a tramp stamp?" Henry asked, amazed.
"Hey!" Emma scolded. She knew something about what her son had just said was wrong for a ten year old to say, she just couldn't decide what aspect to tackle.
"Don't say tramp, especially when you're talking about your mother" Snow chided.
"Where'd you learn to talk like that, anyway?" Charming asked, finding it suspicious that the ten year old who had grown up sheltered by the mayor knew a phrase like that.
Henry shrugged, refusing to give up his source. "Sorry Emma" He apologized.
"It's fine" she said with a smile as she ruffled his hair. "It hurt like hell. It was a very stupid idea. I swear kid, if you ever come home with a tattoo…" Emma stated, leaving the actual threatening part to Henry's own imagination, knowing he would think of a worse punishment than she ever could. Henry gulped.
"Never" he promised.
Charming stared at the picture. "Who gave a sixteen year old a tattoo?" he asked, looking at the date on the photo.
"Friend's older brother's girlfriend was an amateur tattoo artist" Emma explained.
"VERY amateur" Snow corrected, voicing her opinion about the tattoo for the first time.
"Thanks…" Emma muttered sarcastically. "Can we just pretend the tattoo photo never happened?" Emma asked.
"I would love if the tattoo never happened" Charming complained.
Emma rolled her eyes and flipped the page to a sonogram.
"What's that?" Henry asked.
"That's you" Emma said with a smile. The next few pages of the book were devoted to Henry, several ultrasound photos printed off and stuck in here, pictures of a pregnant Emma.
Henry laughed at the sight of himself so…tiny. Snow allowed a few tears to escape as she looked at her grandchild, at her daughter, pregnant at such a young age. Emma smiled, remembering the feeling of having Henry kick from inside of her. The feeling of knowing she wasn't alone.
As they turned the page, Henry's eyes fell onto a photograph of Emma and a man, in his late twenties to early thirties, he guessed. Emma quickly grabbed the photo and shoved it into her pocket.
"Who's that?" Henry asked, confused by his mother's extreme reaction to the picture.
"No one" She replied. But Henry knew better.
"Is that my father?" Henry asked.
"I think that's all of the pictures" Emma concluded, closing the book.
"It is, isn't it? You said you didn't have any pictures of him! I want to see-"
"Henry, this picture doesn't matter, okay? It's nothing, he's no one" Emma lied.
"But-"
"It's almost ten thirty, shouldn't you be getting dressed?" Emma asked.
Henry reluctantly stalked off to the room he shared with Emma, making a mental note to find that picture later. This conversation was not done.
Once Henry was out of ear shot, Charming pulled Emma into a strong embrace. Emma accepted the hug, a rarity for her.
"Your mother and I, we're so proud of you Emma" he began. "I'm so sorry, the people you grew up with… I wish we could have raised you, I wish it more than anything else in the world. Those awful excuses for fathers, they didn't deserve you. I promise Emma, no one will ever hurt you again".
Charming's words opened scars Emma had almost forgotten. Suddenly, she was not a strong willed woman anymore; she was a scared little seven year old, brought back to the days of fearing a beating for spilling her milk on the table. He let a small tear trail down her cheek as she hugged her father back. She too wished he had raised her. She wished no one had ever hurt her, that he could have been there to protect her from the monsters that hid not in her closet, but in the bedroom next to her own.
"If it wasn't for the awful father figures, I probably wouldn't have Henry" Emma offered with a light smiled. "And he's kinda growing on me" She added with a wink.
Charming laughed. "Me too" He said. "I'm serious though, now that I have you back, I promise I'll never let anyone lay a finger on you" He swore.
Snow laughed, feeling sorry for man that would one day have to ask for Charming's permission to marry Emma.