This is a story that I've written about a thousand variations of in my mind since season one and tonight I finally put fingers to keyboard. Hopefully it plays as well as I hope. Set loosely post 4x08.

Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. Definitely Eddy & Adam's.

These bruises make for better conversation,
Loses the vibe that separates,
It's good to let you in again,
You're not alone in how you've been,
Everybody loses, we've all got bruises
-Train's Bruises;

She had thought she was alone for the evening, had been alone for the evening, when she climbed into the shower and so she hadn't worried about bringing clothes down from her bedroom with her. She had planned to relish the comfort of lounging in a towel after a hot shower and not rushing around to get dressed afterward for fear of one of her many roommates – ergh, family members barging in on her. Exiting the shower, she had pulled her hair into a haphazard bun atop her head before wrapping herself in a large bath towel, throwing open the door that opened dead center into the loft.

Where her mother sat on the couch nursing her baby brother.

Crap.

Emma sighed and glanced around, at least her father wasn't part of the audience. Snow had seen her in similar fashion over the years – mostly as Mary Margaret – and was a girl, woman, too so it wasn't nearly as awkward as it would have been if her son or father had been sitting there. Snow glanced up from her son and gave her daughter an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I know you were promised a night to yourself but your brother had to have a meltdown in the middle of granny's. I brought him home but everyone else is still out to dinner."

"It's fine," Emma promised with the wave of her hand. "Squirt was bound to ruin my life at some point or another."

"Emma!"

She smirked. "It's what siblings do, ma."

"Go get dressed and quit being mean to your brother," Snow scolded her teasingly and tossed the burping cloth at her. "We can watch a movie after you're dressed and I put your brother down. If you want."

"Sure." She knew her mother was trying and that she needed to meet her halfway. Something had broken in their relationship after the lost year and Emma desperately wanted to fix it, she wanted her mom back. Her best friend. She made to dart up the stairs but screeched to a halt at the bottom step when she heard her mother's gasp at the sight of her back. She cringed and bowed her head, shame pulsing through her. Mary Margaret had seen her in various states of undress as her roommate and Snow had even seen her a few times during their time in the Enchanted Forest but Emma's hair had always been loose, hanging over her back like armor and protecting her past from the world.

She didn't glance back, she couldn't, before she darted up the stairs and into her room, slamming the door behind her. She quickly ripped a pair of pajamas from the dresser and threw them on before diving onto her bed and pulling the covers over her like she was a child trying to hide from the boogeyman. For years now she had managed to hide that piece of her life from her family; she didn't want them to know. Even when the curse had broken and she had been sullen, throwing painful things in their face to try to make them not love her, to see just how far she could push them. She hadn't wanted them to see her broken bits.

The door opened and shut before she heard Snow quietly pad her way across the room to perch on the edge of her bed, pulling back the covers while Emma pulled the pillow over her head to hide the tears that were freely falling down her face. Snow sighed softly and rubbed a gentle hand over her daughter' back. For the first time she felt the rough scar tissue under her touch, the ridges of her daughter's skin causing her fingers to bump and stutter during their path. "Emma, sweetheart, it's okay."

"Please," she whimpered through a sob. "Don't. I didn't... I can't."

"Emma." Snow laid down on the bed beside her, an arm gently cast across her back as she cuddled her close. "Can you please look at me? Baby, talk to me."

"Talk to you," Emma protested. "Ma, you can't want to know! Do you really want me to tell you?"

"Yes."

She came out from under the pillow only to push away from her mother and protectively curl up in a ball by the headboard. Emma's eyes were red rimmed when she dared to glance at her mother and found tears mirrored in the queen's. "You want me to tell you how I never stayed in any given place for more than six months? How most of the homes I got removed from were abusive but no one ever believed me? If I started making too much noise, if I tried to tell what was going on, they made me out to the bad one – the uncontrollable child and would have me taken away before anyone could get suspicious so they didn't get their licenses pulled and their money taken away. You want me to tell you about the foster father who put those welts on my back with his belt? Or the one that liked putting his cigarettes out on my thighs when I didn't perform how he wanted me to... sexually when I was twelve. Ma, you don't want to know, okay? I've fought so hard to keep it from you because it's ugly! It's hideous. It made me unadoptable. Branded me for life as someone who could never have a home. So I didn't let you see them and I'm sorry you saw them now but you weren't supposed to because I'm ruined, I'm damaged goods. Just a broken lost little girl who isn't allowed to be wanted."

"Emma, stop." Snow's voice was quiet and controlled in spite of the tears that choked at her throat. "Stop it, sweetheart." She knew that Emma was lashing out; if she could push Snow away first then Snow wouldn't have a chance to hurt her. "I love you, Emma. Scars included."

"You can't. They-"

"I am your mother and I love you," Snow promised her and reached out a hand, curling gently around Emma's arm to tug the woman into her arms. "I love you. And I will tell you that a thousand times a day if you need me to until my voice is louder than theirs. They don't get to win, Emma. Because you are beautiful and loved and my daughter."

"Mom," she whispered as she broke and the soft tears turned to grief stricken sobs.

Snow curled herself around Emma as best she could as her baby fell apart. "You can tell me, Emma. Even if it hurts. Even if it will hurt me. And you can tell your dad. We're your parents, baby. Let us carry the weight of it with you. You don't have to hide it anymore."

Calming her tears some, she pushed her bit of hair that had fallen from the bun back from her ear to reveal a jagged half moon faded white scar. "This one is from the wife of the foster dad I had when I was eleven. It was the last time I tried to tell anyone what was happening. She threw me into a mirror when I told her that her husband was trying to have sex with me. She said I was a whore, a little slut trying to steal her husband."

"She was wrong and no one had the right to touch you that way," Snow whispers as she leans in and presses a gentle innocent kiss to the scar behind her daughter's ear.

Emma sighed and pulled up the sleeve on her shirt to point out a faded, barely visible scar on the back of her bicep. "That one was from Neal."

Snow gasped.

"He didn't mean to," Emma promised. "I guess he had PTSD or something from growing up the way he did and we got in a fight one night and... it was like he wasn't even there. He pulled his pocket knife on me. That's all he was able to do before I knocked him out." She sighed and thought of her little brother downstairs, probably sleeping or watching Baby Einstein in his playpen, and the man he was named for. "Neal was good, ma. I promise. He loved me and I loved him. We both just had a lot of demons and I was only seventeen, on the run for my life, and not prepared to deal with his shit on top of my own. Going to prison, taking the fall for him, probably saved both our lives."

"I'm sorry, Emma." For everything, she added in her mind.

"Don't." She shook her head. "I wouldn't have had Henry without him and I don't want a life without Henry."

The brunette nodded.

"The ones on my back that you saw were from the belt," Emma explained. "I was... hard to control as a kid. And I considered myself the protector for anyone smaller than me. So I would... screw up on purpose sometimes. To draw the attention away from the little ones that were easier targets. The foster dad at that one had this belt with these metal studs in them – that's why it scarred as bad as it did."

"I think the noble knights would have had nothing on you, Emma Ruth." Snow pulled her daughter's hair down from the bun, allowing her to have that bit of armor back. She carded her hand through the golden locks, soothing Emma as she played with the long hair. "My brave girl."

"The cigarette burns faded," she explained. "They hurt like a bitch but they healed the best."

"Were most of your homes..."

"They weren't all physically abusive," Emma promised. "Probably not even half. They're the ones that stand out because the proof they happened are written on my skin but they weren't all physically bad. Some were emotionally abusive in the backhanded way that makes you feel like you're the scum of the earth. Most were just neglectful unless a checkup was happening and then they would suddenly give us all the attention in the world so we'd say nice things to the social workers."

Snow nodded. "Were any good?"

"Apparently the Snow Queen was." Emma let out a bitter sigh as she raked her thumb nail over her lower lip, worrying at the soft tissue. "There were a couple others. Mostly the group homes. There were too many kids and never enough to go around but the workers there usually cared, at least more than the homes did. My favorite one was outside of Boston in a little town about a half hour away. There were still too many kids and never enough food but the night worker was one of my favorite people. She was this little old lady and she would bring me books and help me with my homeworker. She always promised me that I would find a home someday."

"And you did," her mother whispered as she swept her daughter's golden hair into a braid that gently cascaded over her back. "You found us. Saved us."

"You saved me," Emma countered. "Henry. You. Dad. Killian and Elsa. You all saved me. Before I came to Storybrooke I was pretty done with life. I had no one, I sucked at making friends to begin with but I really had no one outside of the bail bondsman I worked as a skip chaser for and, well, he was really just my boss. There were acquaintances and guys and stuff but no one who would care if I just... disappeared."

"We'd care," Snow interjected.

Emma smiled. "I know." She leaned into her mother's touch when the braid was finished and allowed the older woman to shelter her, to shield her from the world that as her father had pointed out had been all too cruel to her. "I wasn't suicidal or anything, I have never hurt myself or anything like that, but I was starting to do stupid things and take dangerous risks on the job because who the hell was going to care if I just... died? But then Henry knocked on my door. On my birthday. When all I wished for is that I wouldn't have to be alone."

"Oh Emma." Snow kissed the crown of her head as she rocked her baby. "You are so loved, sweetheart. If something happened to you... when you disappeared because of that wretched woman... I can't lose you, Emma. We can't. You matter so much."

"I know, I'm the savior."

Snow frowned and pulled back, turning Emma and cupping her chin so she would look at her. "You are my daughter, Emma. You're our daughter, mine and David's. And Henry's mother. Neal's big sister. Killian's love. Elsa's best friend. Red and Grumpy's goddaughter. You are so many things, Emma, and savior may be one of them but it is far from the top of the list, my girl."

"I..." She let her mother's words chase away the taunts of the Snow Queen from her mind. "I really needed to hear that."

"Any time you need reminded of it, you come find me," she instructed with a firm kiss to her little girl's forehead. "Now, how about we leave the bad memories to the past for the rest of the night and go downstairs to watch a movie before your brother awakes and the house is invaded by our huge family."

Emma wrapped her mother in a tight hug, holding on for a long moment before pulling back. "Deal. So long as you make the cocoa because yours is better than mine."

"Anything you want, daughter of mine. Anything you want." Snow gave her forehead one more kiss before she climbed off the bed and made for the door.

"Hey ma," Emma called after her and caused her to pause in the shadows of the hallway. "I'm glad for all that crap, you know? Cause it gave me Henry and it brought me here. It brought me home. With my mom and dad and the most twisted family tree this world has ever seen."

Snow's face broke into a smile that even Emma could see in the shadows as she let out a laugh before made for the stairs. She called over her shoulder, "We're glad for them too, Emma. I promise."

And Emma believed in something for the second time in her life.