Hello Oncers! Here's a one shot bonding session for between Emma and Charming set in the latter part of season two. The sheriff and her deputy are on a stake out. This was part of a longer multi-chapter story I'm working on but it didn't fit. I liked it too much to delete it, so I turned it into something else.

The attacks at the White Rabbit would include what Gold did to the Sheriff of Nottingham in the Lacey episode, though since the bar is something of a dive, I wouldn't think it's a one man crime wave.

Hope you enjoy it, and if you do, I'd love to hear from you!

What We Do For Fun Around Here

'I mean, doesn't it bother you that we've all been more or less Gold's marionette actors in his little puppet theatre?' Emma asks, frustrated.

'I guess.' David replies vaguely, turning back from gazing out of the car window to look at his daughter. There have been some attacks in the vicinity so they've been staking out the White Rabbit bar for a couple of hours now.

The car is cold and the coffee weak, but he's thrilled to be spending so much time alone with his daughter. Still the conversation has been somewhat unvarying. Between Emma's pensive silences, most of her words have been irritated outbursts revolving around Gold and the extent of his knowledge and influence over their pasts and futures. It's been hard to persuade her onto any other topics.

David remembers feeling this indignant about Rumpelstiltskin's interference in the early days of his association with the enigmatic wizard, but he's long accepted that the Dark One will help or hinder as his greater knowledge of the situation dictates and will keep his own counsel about his ultimate plans. Not so much aligned with good or evil, more working at a diagonal to both, he thinks, unknowingly echoing his daughter's phrasing of her own suspicions about the relationship between Gold and Regina.

'No seriously, where's free will in all of this?' She demands.

David considers for a moment before answering. 'Well, the way I see it, free will's always kind of limited whatever you believe, right? I mean, whether it's Gold or Regina, or God or fate or just chance, all of our choices are limited by our circumstances. Like, I was never gonna play starting pitcher for the Red Sox, what with growing up on a sheep farm in the Enchanted Forest and all that.'

'Yeah, I guess you didn't really do jogging or joining a gym from the look of the place either,' Emma smiles, finally resigning herself to the fact that they aren't going to get anywhere but irate or maudlin discussing Rumpelstiltskin's multi-generational plan to screw up everyone's lives.

'Nope, I'd never even heard of jogging before I came to Storybrooke. And we didn't really have sportswear, you know, sneakers and stuff,' David says.

'So how did you keep fit?' Emma asks.

David shrugs, 'Started a war?'

Emma snorts the sip of almost cold coffee she's just taken and brushes the spray off her jacket with a gloved hand. 'No, seriously, I mean you had sports, right?'

'Sure. Jousting, archery, competitive sword fighting…chasing pigs.' He's grinning now. There are few joys in life greater than being the one to make his daughter laugh.

'Chasing pigs?' Emma repeats, raising her eyebrows suspiciously. 'Are you teasing me?'

'No!' he asserts. 'Not everyone could afford a horse to joust on. And pigs are pretty fast and wily. It's more fun than it sounds.'

'No, it sounds... entertaining. I'd watch that. Probably. If there was no baseball on.'

David turns back to the darkened window and blows out a breath that steams in the cold night air. 'Do you think there's any point to this? I'm not a stake out expert or anything, but it's pretty difficult to be low profile in Storybrooke. I mean everyone knows us and they probably recognise this car.'

Emma sighs. 'You're probably right. Maybe we'd do better to roust them out tomorrow, knock some heads together and see what comes of it. Let's call it a night; head home.'

'We could stop at Granny's first, get a hot drink, warm up,' David suggests hopefully, sick of sitting in the cold car, drinking unpleasantly tepid coffee, but not wanting to give up his daughter's company. This is the most relaxed conversation he's ever had with her and he's not ready to let her go yet.

Emma smiles, unexpectedly happy to hear that David wants to spend more time with her.

'Sure,' she replies. 'I could handle a hot chocolate.'

'So did you ever play baseball?' David asks as they settle into a booth and warm their hands on their steaming cocoa mugs.

Emma shakes her head. 'Softball. And I was pretty good at middle distance.'

'There are so many things that I missed,' he says trying not to sound wistful. He doesn't want to freak Emma out, send her running for the door.

'I know. First smile, first steps, first date,' Emma reels off some of the milestones, her tone almost flippant, except she's missed a lot of those things with Henry too, and it's not funny.

'Actually I probably shouldn't say this, but I'm sort of glad I missed the first date,' David admits with a wry smile. 'No father really needs that kind of stress in his life.'

Emma smiles, 'You're right. You would not have enjoyed that first date.'

'Oh god, don't tell me. Tattoos and a motorcycle?' He scrunches up his face as though bracing himself.

'Worse.'

'What's worse?'

'Older man.' She pauses to assess the impact. She's not disappointed. The scrunched face turns to a wince.

'How old?'

'I was ten, he was twelve. We went bowling and held hands.'

David laughs in relief and she's glad she went with that story. It' is a true story, but it's not really what she would go with as her first real date story if she was talking to someone other than her father. The reality is closer to David's guess, except the guy, Brad, favoured a beat up old car over a motorcycle because he didn't want to freeze his ass off in the bitter Boston winters while charming younger girls in to their first time before dumping them. And yes, he was older. More like six years older than her sixteen years.

She brings her attention back as David moves on to other firsts.

'It wasn't your first smile, but I'll never forget the first time you smiled at me, knowing who I really am,' he says and she feels the words inside her, warm and truthful and unsettling.

'I am sorry I missed the first time you decked a guy though,' he continues with a smile, judging a change in tone is needed, and Emma wonders for a moment if she should have told him the real first date story, as Brad was the first guy she ever decked.

'I'm sad I missed your first steps, but one thing I'm really sorry I missed was the time you cut down half Regina's apple tree with a chainsaw. I bet that was completely awesome. I'd have given anything to see that.'

Emma laughs, surprised he knows about that because it happened before he even woke from his coma, but glad because it means either Henry or Mary Margaret must have told him and secretly she likes hearing that they've talked about her like that while she hasn't been around.

'It was pretty awesome,' she admits. Should've sold tickets to that show. I'd have made my fortune!'

David laughs with her, but then his smile fades. He knows it's going to freak her out now, but he needs her to hear what he's thinking and he's hopeful enough that maybe she'll come accept it over time.

'I feel like it sounds wrong somehow to say that I'm proud of you, like I'm taking credit for something I have no right to because I wasn't there for you for so long, I wasn't there when you were learning to be who you've become, but I don't know how else to describe it. Emma I think you are magnificent. And I love you more than I know how to put into words.'

David's openness takes her breath away. He and Mary Margaret are both like that, never ashamed to be honest about their feelings, never trying to hide the depth of them. It's terrifying because the world she grew up in was full of people who protected themselves from real emotions, played games with others' feelings, but somehow part of her responds and longs to be as open and honest in return.

Her parents accept the difficult feelings she has about the past; they listen and try not to talk away her pain even though it devastates them, even more so than the knowledge of what they lost in the curse, the chance to raise their own daughter.

They deserve to know how much things have changed for her since she came to Storybrooke, since she broke the curse and accepted that they are her parents. She managed to say something to Mary Margaret when they stood in her wrecked nursery in the Enchanted Forest. David deserves to hear something honest from her too.

'I know what you mean about saying you're proud of me. I feel the same when I say it to Henry. It amazes me how resilient and loving he is after growing up with Regina. I didn't help him become that person, but I am proud of him and I love him so much.'

'He loves hearing it from you,' David reassures her. 'He worships you and he looks at least six inches taller when he feels your pride in him.'

Emma nods, her heart bursting at the thought. She's tried for a long time to deny it, but deep down she knows it's true.

'I know I can be prickly and standoffish with you guys, but I want you to know that it is the same for me. It touches something in me when I hear that you approve of me. That you care.'

'Really?' David looks genuinely surprised to hear it and as she nods her confirmation, she realises how effectively her emotional walls disguise the vulnerable parts of her even from those she is gradually allowing to slip through into her heart.

They finish their cocoa and head back to the car. Emma doesn't speak; she has a lot going around in her head. She's not used to heart to heart conversations and she's surprised at herself that she didn't run away from this one.

She smiles, thinking she could somehow have seen it happening the other way around: light-hearted conversations about chasing pigs face to face under the bright lights of Granny's and more poignant stuff about missed opportunities and pride expressed awkwardly while both of them stare through the windshield of a darkened car, studiously avoiding eye contact.

Gold thinks she and her father lack tact, but David must have some guile for that to have happened the way it just did.

And they all lived happily ever after... Thanks for reading!