Disclaimer: Once Upon A Time belongs to ABC.
Seriously, this fandom. You guys are all so polite and encouraging, it's kind of freaking me out. So anyway I decided to round out the other two oneshots I did, Emma and Find Us, with a whole Charming family feels-fest. This one is a bit different, as all three are third person limited narratives, but this one is from Emma's perspective, and I figure her brain works a bit differently from her parents'. Again, you don't necessarily need to read Emma or Find Us for this to make sense, but I won't stop you.
On her third day at sea, Emma decided she really hated ships.
Boats, dinghies, rafts, canoes, forget about all of it. She never wanted to be stuck on anything floating out in the middle of an endless body of water ever again.
Emma was a runner. She liked open spaces with plenty of opportunity to make a quick escape at the drop of a hat. Even staying in the same house in Storybrooke for as long as she had was a stretch for her, and she could have left anytime she wanted.
But this? Stuck on a pirate ship for three days with two people her age who were apparently her long lost parents, plus her arch enemy who was an on-again-off-again ally, plus the father of the one man she could actually say she loved before he had been shot and thrown in a portal and also happened to be the father of her kid who had been kidnapped, plus a pirate who was getting a little too handsy considering he only had one hand?
Nope. This was ridiculous.
It was just too damn cramped. There was barely any space, barely any privacy, and she was uncomfortable in normal social situations with normal people, let alone a bunch of magical villains and her extremely affectionate parents.
In the past two days on the Sea of Neverland, Emma had managed to have two tear-filled, life altering conversations. One with her mom, one with her dad. Her mom, Snow White, and her dad, Prince Charming. Because that's the kind of thing that happens to her now. She has fairytale characters for family and she went through a portal to another world made by a magic bean to find her son who was kidnapped and being brought to Peter Pan.
Seriously.
These were all the thoughts roiling around in her head as she paced up and down the main deck of the Jolly Roger, so impatient and so desperate to run that she was fully prepared to jump ship at the slightest provocation and try her luck with the mermaids. Her parents were acting all weird around her now that she was calling them Mom and Dad, and she was pretty sure they were in the cabin making out right now. Hook was at the wheel, Rumpelstiltskin was up in the crow's nest looking for land, and Regina was sitting up in the stern, keeping an eye on everything for whatever reason.
There wasn't exactly a lot to keep an eye on.
"Be careful, Miss Swan," Regina called suddenly. Emma stopped in her tracks and looked at her. "You'll wear right through the deck if you keep pacing like that."
Emma counted to ten in her head to keep from leaping at her. In some weird way, she knew Regina was actually trying to be sort of nice to her, but that didn't change the fact that Emma was at her breaking point and Regina always sounded so damn smug. Although Hook was closer, and she'd be equally okay punching him in the face.
"She's right, Swan," Hook drawled from his place at the helm. "But I can think of a few ways you can pay me back if you do end up wrecking my ship."
"Are you freaking kidding me?!" Emma finally snapped. Even Rumpel peered down from his perch to see what was going on. "I mean seriously?! This is happening right now. This is actually happening right now."
The three of them just stared at her. She threw her hands up in exasperation and stomped across the deck, throwing open the cabin door.
"You people!" she shouted over her shoulder. "I mean I just… I can't even… seriously!" And with that she slammed the door behind her.
Nice work, she thought to herself. Eloquent as usual.
And then she turned to find her parents sitting up on Snow's berth, trying to make it look like they hadn't just been doing exactly what they'd been doing. Snow's hair was a mess and David's shirt was on the floor, and they were both red-faced and panting and pretending not to be.
"Oh come on," Emma groaned, covering her eyes with a hand. "I just can't catch a break today."
David laughed uncomfortably as he picked up his shirt and pulled it over his head. "Sure, you walk in on us and you're the one who can't catch a break," he muttered.
Snow shot him a look, to which he cleared his throat awkwardly and pretended to find the port hole beside him very interesting all of a sudden.
Emma just groaned again and made for the hold. "Forget it, I can't deal with this right now," she grumbled, but her mother was suddenly standing in her way.
"Hold on," she said firmly, putting her hands on Emma's shoulders and steering her back a few steps. Emma was too worked up to resist, so she suddenly found herself sitting next to her father while Snow grabbed a nearby crate and placed it in front of them. She sat on it with an air of finality and crossed her arms over her chest, giving her daughter a hard look. "What's going on?"
Emma stared at her. Then she turned and stared at her father. Her mouth opened a bit as she turned back to her mother again, but no sound came out. What's going on?
"What's going on?" she finally managed to repeat, rather incredulously. "What's going on? Really?" She laughed, and when she heard herself laughing she realized how hysterical she sounded. But it was too late now, the floodgates had opened. "I'm on a pirate ship in Neverland with my parents who are my age and also fairytale characters, looking for my son who was kidnapped, and being helped by three people I have considered enemies on multiple occasions."
She saw her parents exchange a look of alarm, but that sure as hell wasn't about to stop her.
"I apparently have to ability to do magic because I'm the product of true love, I was shoved through a portal to another world as a baby to save my life while you guys were stuck in limbo for twenty-eight years by a curse, Peter Pan is apparently some evil kidnapper running an organization of magic-haters back in my world, and can we just stop a second and take in the fact that I've just said the word 'magic' twice like it wasn't a big deal?"
Suddenly, she felt like she was suffocating, so she jumped to her feet and started pacing around the tiny space.
"I grew up an orphan, bouncing from one crappy foster home to the next in a very normal world with very normal problems, I stole and I lied and I had a kid in prison because I took the fall for a guy it turns out I'm in love with who is also Rumpelstiltskin's world-hopping son and probably dead now, I'm a sheriff in a town with a giant and dwarves and fairies and a girl who literally, literally turns into a wolf sometimes, I almost got eaten by an ogre and a woman actually reached into my chest to try to rip my heart out, but she couldn't. Why?"
She turned on her parents and waved her hands in the air.
"Because magic, that's why."
She stopped to take a breath, closing her eyes and dragging a hand through her hair. She could practically feel her parents staring at her, and she heard Snow take a breath like she was about to say something.
"Nope, not done yet," Emma snapped, holding up a hand before Snow could say anything. Snow remained silent, shooting a slightly pouty look in David's direction.
"That's the thing with you people," Emma said as she resumed pacing, still waving her hands around. "This completely insane crap happens all the time and you're looking at me like I'm the crazy one. In the Enchanted Forest, yeah, I would be the crazy one, but back in my world, magic is super not normal. I mean seriously? Wands? Fairy dust? Dragons? Magic beans? Curses? True love's kiss?" She turned and looked at her parents, her eyes wild. "All of this is insane. And I think I've done a pretty damn good job of taking it into stride until this point. Maybe I was in denial. Maybe I've just been holding it together for Henry's sake."
Emma stopped pacing abruptly. She stood for a moment, unsure of what to do. Henry. God, she was so worried about Henry. She sat heavily back on the berth beside her father, suddenly not sure if her legs would support her anymore. She stared at her hands.
"If I have all of this magic," she said, her voice cracking. Oh good, she was about to cry again. "If I'm really the product of true love and a miracle and the Savior and I have all of this power…" She sniffed and squeezed her eyes shut. She was so tired of crying. But when she took a deep breath and looked up at her mother's face, so full of concern and care and love, she couldn't hold the tears back anymore. "Why couldn't I save Neal? Why couldn't I save Henry?"
Snow's eyes widened in understanding and welled with tears. Emma couldn't look at her anymore. She dropped her head into her hands and choked back a sob.
"Oh," she heard her mother breathe. "Oh, Emma, honey…"
She felt her father wrap an arm around her shoulders and kiss the top of her head. She felt her mother lean close and take both of her hands into hers, lacing their fingers together and squeezing them tight. And in that moment, it all came crashing down around Emma's head.
She was with her parents. After all those years of searching for them, wondering about them, hating them, convincing herself she was better off without them, here they were trying to pick up the pieces left behind when she finally broke.
So, naturally, she started sobbing. Real, horrible, heart-broken sobs like she'd never cried before. Neither of them said a word. They just held her tighter as she bent double, completely losing her mind and bawling like the world was ending. She loved Henry so much, more than she ever thought it was possible to love someone, and she couldn't begin to imagine how her parents felt.
Henry found Emma when he was ten. He wasn't exactly a baby anymore, but she still got to be there for his childhood. She got to watch him grow up. But her parents had missed all of that. From the way they had spoken to her in the past two days, all they wanted was that twenty-eight years back. They wanted to be there for her, to raise her, to watch her grow up, and it killed them that they couldn't.
How could she possibly be angry with them anymore? After all those years thinking they hadn't wanted her, she found out that they had wanted her more than anything in the entire world. In any world.
It just wasn't fair. Especially since she would never take back those twenty-eight years, because they led her to her son. Everything that had happened, all the pain and suffering, all the loneliness and despair, all of it had led her to Henry.
And then… there was Neal.
Or should she call him Baelfire now?
Having him in her life again was shocking enough, but to find out he was part of this whole mess she was in was just too much. She was mad, she was scared, she was glad he was around for Henry but not for herself. She had gone from being alone for her entire life to having this stupidly complicated family in no time flat, and the fact that she hadn't had a complete breakdown before now was a source of great confusion to her.
But hey, here she was. Crying like she'd never cried before. Her throat was raw from sobbing and she seemed to be out of tears, but she just kept crying. And suddenly she realized Snow had moved to the berth beside her, and her parents both had their arms around her, and her father was hushing her and her mother was whispering to her, and she felt herself calming down somehow.
"We're here, honey," Snow whispered over and over again. "Mom and Dad are here, you're safe."
Words she had never heard in her life.
She stopped crying at long last and slowly sat up. Her parents seemed reluctant to let go of her, so David's arm remained around her shoulders and Snow started slowly running her fingers through Emma's hair. They didn't say anything, just waited for her to catch her breath.
"I'm tired," was the first thing Emma managed to say, and she felt her parents exchange a look over her head. She glanced over at her mother and saw a fond smile on her face.
"I can't blame you," Snow said quietly. "Seems like that's been building up for a long time."
Emma nodded mutely and glanced at her father. He just smiled gently and got to his feet, gesturing for Emma to lie down.
"Here, just lie down right here and take a nap," he said, his voice quiet but firm. Emma looked back at Snow, her eyes still a little wild.
"It's okay, sweetheart," her mother said as she got to her feet as well. "We'll stay here until you fall asleep."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Emma felt completely ridiculous. She was acting like a child, after all. But for now, this was working for her. They got to be her parents, and she got to be their daughter. Even if only for a little while.
So she lied down on the berth and closed her eyes. She heard her mother sit back down on the crate, and felt her reach forward and brush some hair behind her ear. Emma opened her eyes for a moment, not sure what to think of what she was seeing. Her mother smiling down at her, her father sitting on the stairs up to the deck as if he was guarding the room from monsters.
She was too exhausted to figure out all of these feelings right now. Snow seemed to recognize this, as she bent down and kissed Emma's forehead.
"Go to sleep, Emma," she whispered. "We aren't going anywhere."
"That's a promise," David added quietly, smiling at his girls.
Emma nodded and closed her eyes, and after a few moments her mother started humming. Emma didn't recognize the tune, but somehow she knew that this was the lullaby her parents had planned to sing to her when she was a baby.
So Emma fell asleep to the sound of her mother humming, feeling for the first time like everything would be okay. She couldn't tell you why.
Maybe it was magic.