Fair warning: This is an Anti-Swanfire fic and if that bothers you then please click away now because flames will not be tolerated.
A/N: So a really good friend sent me the song Just Like Him by Brandy Clark tonight and it spawned this Emma moment in my head. I hope it's enjoyable and I beg your forgiveness for any mistakes as I'm about to fall over from tiredness.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. Definitely Emma's.
"They say love's like coming home and I came from a broken one..."
"He was nice until he wasn't," Emma explained softly in the dimly lit kitchen as she drew her knees to her chest and curled her piano fingers around the steaming mug of cocoa. Her mother sat across from her; clad in pajamas with a sleeping baby boy against her chest and her own mug of cocoa rapidly cooling on the kitchen table. The blonde had been coming downstairs for a snack when she found her mother walking her baby brother around the kitchen in an attempt to keep him from screaming the whole night through. Somehow they had ended up talking on the subject of her brother's namesake and Emma could not lie to her mother, she couldn't candy coat her relationship with Neal for the sake of their happiness. "We fought a lot."
"Emma," Snow breathed her daughter's name like a prayer.
"I was sixteen when I met him and just a little older than seventeen when I went to prison because of him, mama," she explained carefully, trying to word it as painlessly as possible. "He was twenty-four. Or a few hundred years old if you count all that time in Neverland. I just... Growing up in the foster system was hard, okay? There were lots and lots of bad families and I never landed any one place for long. When I was sixteen, I ran. As far and as fast as I could. When I met Neal, I hadn't had a dinner that didn't come from a mission or a trash can in months. And he was my salvation. He taught me how to steal and not get caught. How to pick locks and pockets like it was second nature."
"Sweetheart."
"There were lots of times when we were good together," Emma promised. "He made me laugh and he gave me a home – even if it was just the backseat of my crappy car. But there were times when he could just be mean... Mean enough to know there's no denying he's Rumpelstiltskin's son."
"Did he..." Snow trailed off, not wanting to believe she could have named her son after a man who abused her daughter.
"I think it was post traumatic stress," she explained with the wave of her hand. "We would be fighting because we both had our fair share of shit we weren't dealing with... and he's the one that made my nose just kind of crooked. One time, in Flagstaff, he pulled a knife on me in some shitty hotel room and I'm still not sure why. Don't remember much of it other than knocking him out and sleeping locked in the bathroom that night. It could have been a lot worse, I realize that now. And when he saved all of us... he was a changed man. He rose to the occasion."
"I'm sorry, honey, if we had known."
"I just... I loved him, I did. But I loved him in that way foster kids do when they just get out of the system and someone is offering them something better than what they'd had before. And when he sold me out and let me take the fall for him... the blinders came off and I realized what the two of us had was never healthy." Emma sighed shakily. "And when he came back with Tamara... He was a jackass. And that was just Neal. No post traumatic stress, no need to steal, and no running away. It was just him being a world class jerk to me and not respecting me enough to back off when I told him to. He always could play with my emotions and I had this nasty habit of letting him."
"I'll talk to your father," Snow promised. "Maybe we can-"
"Piss off the Dark One by changing my brother's name? No." Emma sighed and reached out to run a hand over the dark hair on her brother's head. "He's good. He's innocent. And he's already changed my opinion on people named Neal. Besides Neal was never really Neal, Baelfire was always in there somewhere. Neal, though? Prince Neal "Little Charming" Nolan? He's good. He'll never hurt anyone the way Neal hurt me."
"We'll make sure of that."
Emma smiled. "Just... Any future siblings maybe don't name after my exes."
"What about current beaus," Snow countered with a slight tease.
The blonde laughed and shook her head. "Nah, mama. Killian is mine." Her mother gasped at the mere idea that maybe Emma would be interested in being mother to a Killian Jr someday (though the woman seriously doubted she would ever use that particular name for anyone other than her pirate). "When I was little, growing up in the system, I imagined what my parents would be like a lot. It was kind of my favorite game, ya know? Actually for a long time I did imagine being royalty but I was thinking Princess Emma of Wales or something – not Princess Emma of Mist Haven. Anyway, when I got older... Those fantasies kind of morphed. I kept hoping and dreaming up my parents but my view turned darker. I expected some battered woman and a world class jackass for a father. I thought maybe that was what I deserved."
"Oh, Emma, honey." Snow stood, shifting her son to one arm and rounding the table to wrap her daughter in a hug as she kissed her head. "No. Emma, you deserve the world."
"I know that now," she breathed. "When I was younger... I swore I would never a be with a man like I imagined my father to be but I ended up with Ne- Baelfire anyway. And then I met dad and I realized that maybe being with a guy like dad wouldn't be the worst thing to ever happen – someone to love me the way that dad loves you."
"And then you met Killian," her mother supplied.
Emma grinned. "And then I met Killian. The pain in the ass pirate who would rather let Zelena kill him, would rather die, than let anything happen to me. He loves me like dad loves you. And I deserve that. It took me the better part of thirty years to realize it but what Killian is offering is what I deserve and I don't want to miss my chance."
"You're in love," Snow told her.
She nodded. "Maybe. Probably. I'm still... getting over that particular wall. But I know I need to at least try with him." Emma bit her lip to keep her grin at bay. "I'm going to talk to Henry and then I'm going to ask him out. On a date. You'll keep dad on a leash, right?"
Her mother laughed. "I'll try but I think Killian is a big boy and can take it. Plus, I happen to know that a certain Prince Charles has already impressed the father of Princess Emma of Mist Haven."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Emma drained her coffee mug and broke off from her mother to put it in the sink before doubling back and wrapping the woman in a hug. "I'm going to go to bed so I can get up in time to talk to Henry before he goes to school in the morning."
"Okay, sweetheart." Snow smiled and watched her daughter kiss her brother's head as she slipped away toward the stairs, carrying herself more lightly than she had since she returned to Storybrooke. "Emma Ruth," she called after her retreating form. "I love you."
"I know," Emma promised. "I love you back."
"I used to say that I'd be damned before I'd ever fall in love with a man like the one mama wasted her youth on... you're just like him."
-Brandy Clark's Just Like Him