An AU in which Snow and Charming both go through the wardrobe before Emma is born, and raise her in our world. Title from 'I'll Be Home for Christmas'. Song lyrics taken from 'Let it Snow', 'Winter Wonderland', 'Baby, It's Cold Outside', 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas', 'The Christmas Song', 'My Favorite Things', and 'Believe'.
where the love light gleams
Four
-When we finally kiss goodnight, how I'll hate going out in the storm. But if you'll really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm.-
They don't have much. Emma is old enough to understand that they aren't like other families; not like the little girls who have shelves and shelves of dolls, or the boys with racecars and toy guns. She doesn't mind, though. She's always been satisfied with her handsewn bear and wooden swords. Like Mommy has always said, they're rich in what matters - love.
She watches the snow fall outside, coming down in big chunky flakes that cover the world in a blanket of white. It's a half hour past bedtime, making it a full hour past storytime, but Mommy and Daddy say it's okay. "It's Christmas Eve, honey," Mommy had said, stirring the hot cocoa as Daddy stoked the fire.
They're dancing now, and Emma catches sight of them out of the corner of her eye. They don't dance like other mommies and daddies - not the swift steps or close sway that she's seen at the movies - but move around one another in an intricate pattern of twirls, like something from her storybook. The radio has been broken for weeks, but they don't care - Daddy hums instead, then sings, "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."
"Charming!" Mommy laughs, and then they aren't dancing anymore, instead kissing and lost in one another.
Dancing looks like fun, she thinks. Without the kissing, at least. And if there aren't stories to be read, and it's too cold for swordfighting …
"Daddy," she says, making her way into the kitchen where her parents are falling over one another in laughter and joy. "Can you teach me too?"
Mommy smiles, and Daddy beams. "Of course, Princess."
He lifts her onto his feet then, and dances her around the kitchen, then the living room and then all the way off to bed. Mommy sings for them, joyful songs of holly and ivy that Emma has never heard before.
.
Eight
-Later on, we'll conspire as we dream by the fire to face unafraid the plans that we've made, walking in a winter wonderland.-
Santa comes to the Nolan household for the first time the same year the other children stop believing. It doesn't bother Emma; she knows that Mom and Dad are behind it, but they're so excited to finally give her presents that she doesn't tell.
Mom's got a job now. After years of studying and just scraping by, she gets her own class at Emma's school - a group of kids two years older than her. The pay helps, even if the other children are even less likely to play with her now. But Dad spends less nights staring at the bills, and more nights teaching her to wield a sword.
The teachers' association has a party, and Emma wears her new dress. She doesn't really like dresses - they aren't exactly practical for slaying dragons or racing through the woods on fog-thick days - but Mom says it's like a ball, and Dad says princesses (even bandit princesses) wear pretty dresses to balls. It's a white Christmas, and Dad wraps her and Mom up in his jacket as they race toward the school. He's shivering and soaked to the bone when they get inside, and Mom dusts the snow from his hair, giggling as she leans in for a kiss.
They do that a lot, too much and in public too. "Get a room," Emma groans, then makes a gagging noise to emphasize her point. Her parents break apart then, blushing and smiling at one another like there's a secret between them.
When the music starts, Dad bows overdramatically and asks her for a dance.
She can dance on her own now, of course, and she twirls around the cafeteria with all the grace of a lady. She doesn't need to stand on his feet anymore, but she does when she gets tired, and Dad drops a kiss to the top of her head.
"Merry Christmas, Princess."
.
Thirteen
-I really can't stay. But baby, it's cold outside. I've got to go away. But baby, it's cold outside. This evening has been- Been hoping that you'd drop in. -so very nice. I'll hold your hands, they're just like ice.-
Emma's parents are different. They aren't like other parents at all, and while that had been fun when she was a kid, it's almost a burden now. They're different. She's different. She's known it for a long time, but had never been quite able to put her finger on it. She can now.
Mom has kept excellent scrapbooks, documenting every memorable occasion of her entire life. There aren't any photos from before she was born, but there are more than enough from the years after to make up for it. She sees it now, staring at two photographs side-by-side - Mom and Dad holding her as a baby on her very first Christmas, and the newest of the three of them together, taken just a week ago and ready to be added to the album.
Her parents look the same.
"Why are you so young?" she asks, and her parents take a moment to disentangle themselves, still caught up in their Christmas Eve tradition of dancing around the kitchen.
Dad smiles, and comes to sit beside her on the couch. "What's that, Princess?"
"You look the same," she explains, and holds out both pictures. He smiles fondly at them. "I'm thirteen and you still look the same as when I was a baby."
"Huh," he says, sounding truly stumped. "I suppose I might."
"Other parents look older."
"Maybe it's the curse," Mom suggests, moving to sandwich Emma from the other side.
Emma glances to the storybook on the coffee table, feeling something tug at the corner of her mind. "But I'm aging," Emma protests. "Maybe Bobby Johnson is right. I need to stop it with these delusional fantasies."
Mom huffs. "Well, maybe I should tell Bobby Johnson's mother that he should stop being an a-"
Dad cuts her off, giving her that scolding look that always makes her sigh in defeat. "Or maybe we should start opening presents."
Miss Lockhart says it's unhealthy for her parents to let her believe in things like curses and other realms. But her parents usually just shrug and point out that they don't exactly encourage it either. Part of her feels that should be significant, but she isn't sure why.
Dad hands her a neatly wrapped gift, no bigger than the palm of her hand. "But it's only Christmas Eve," she frowns.
"It's okay," says Dad. "We won't tell Santa."
She pulls the bow free before tearing through the paper to reveal a crystal unicorn, catching and refracting the light from the Christmas tree into glittering patterns all around her. She's seen crystals before, of course, but there's something different about this one - something unearthly, something almost … magical.
"Whoa," she breathes, turning it in her palms and watching the shimmering light shift and turn.
"It was supposed to be yours," says Mom quietly. "When you were a baby."
Emma thinks of their life when she was younger - of Mom and Dad skipping dinner so she could have enough, of Dad working two jobs while Mom cleaned houses just to keep food on the table. They could never have afforded something so grand back then. "Why are you giving it to me now?" she says, when she really means to ask, 'Why didn't you sell it?'
Dad pulls his fingers through her hair, then presses a kiss to her temple. "We wanted to wait until you were ready."
Emma takes a moment to consider what that means, and her parents make their way back to the kitchen. There's something almost familiar about the figurine in her hand, something tugging at the back of her mind. She's never seen something so beautiful, and yet-
"Emma, honey?"
Emma looks up, breaking from her reverie. "Hm?"
"Do you want eggnog or cocoa?" Mom asks.
She smiles, setting the unicorn aside. "Cocoa, please!"
.
Seventeen
-Through the years, we all will be together, if the Fates allow. Hang a shining star upon the highest bough, and have yourself a merry little Christmas now.-
"Mom?"
It's the morning of Christmas Eve and she still hasn't left for home. Instead, she's pacing back and forth in her dorm room, winding the telephone cord around her finger. She's always been stubborn, and admitting that her father had been right - that even though she'd graduated early, seventeen was too young to go to college, too young to make adult decisions - is something she is absolutely loathe to do.
"Emma!" And then she hears the muffled sound of her mother calling out to her father, "Charming! Charming, Emma's on the phone!" There's a click as Dad picks up the phone in the kitchen. "We were so worried! We've been trying to call you all week. Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Dad's voice is low. "Mary Margaret-"
"I'm fine," Emma says, though she isn't so sure herself. "Listen-"
"You are coming home for Christmas aren't you?"
Emma sighs, plopping down on her bed. "It isn't that. It's -" She swallows hard, and when she speaks again her voice is high and thin. "Mom, I'm pregnant."
The other end is silent for a long moment. So long, in fact, that Emma feels a pang of terror, convinced they've hung up on her. And then she hears her father sigh.
She's always thought it was cliché, but they aren't angry - just disappointed.
"Can I still come home for Christmas?" she asks, sounding just as small as she feels.
"Oh, Emma honey," Mom breathes, and Emma knows she's crying. "Of course you can. Why would you ever think-"
"Because I fucked up!"
"Emma," Dad says gently, "nothing you can say or do could make us stop loving you. Please come home."
Four hours later, when she kicks the snow off her boots and slips in the front door, they don't say anything about the pregnancy.
Not a word.
Her mother hugs her, kisses her cheeks, then holds her at arms' length. It's like looking into a mirror - her too-young mother looking at her with eyes that are too old. She feels old now too; even as she feels far too young to be having a baby, her bones and heart ache as if she's much older than her years.
Dad hugs her too, cradles the back of her head and whispers, "I've missed you, Princess."
But it's only when the radio starts crooning Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and Dad turns her in circles around the kitchen that she loses it, sobbing into his shoulder like a little girl.
.
Eighteen
-And so I'm offering this simple phrase to kids from one to ninety-two, though it's been said many times, many ways - merry Christmas to you.-
On Henry's first Christmas, Emma hangs a crystal unicorn above his bed. Just one, because that's all she has, and Dad says it had once been part of her own mobile.
She watches as Mom rocks him to sleep, humming and swaying from side to side, then as Dad puts him to bed, dropping a careful kiss to his head. "Merry Christmas, kid."
.
Twenty-two
-Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes; snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes; silver white winters that melt into springs. These are a few of my favorite things.-
"And as the prince chased the thief on horseback-"
Emma rolls her eyes, depositing two mugs of cinnamon and hot chocolate on the coffee table. "Dad, please don't start that with him too."
"Start what?" Dad says, and looks up from the storybook - the same book of fairytales she'd grown up reading; new to Henry for Christmas Eve - and Henry makes a noise of protest, squirming in his lap.
"This whole - curse thing. It was - cute - when I was a kid." She remembers lunches eaten with her mother, remembers spending recess alone on the swings. "But I don't think-"
Henry's eyes widen, and she instantly regrets saying anything. Why couldn't they be one of those families that reads 'Twas the Night Before Christmas or A Christmas Carol instead? "A curse? Gramps didn't say anything about a curse!"
"Henry-"
Mom springs to the rescue then, offering Henry a beater covered in chocolate pie filling, and he races off to clean the bowl as well.
Emma moves to sit beside her father, cradling her own mug of hot cocoa between her palms. "Dad-"
He raises his hands defensively. "I wasn't telling him about the curse," he says in a rush. "I just thought-"
She cuts him off. "It's okay. I just-" She sighs, peeking into the kitchen where Mom is lifting him so he can wash his hands and face - now hopelessly covered in gooey chocolate - in the sink. "I just don't want him to grow up like I did." He's quiet, and when she turns back to him, her heart nearly shatters at the hurt written on his face. "Dad, I didn't mean-"
His tone is gentle. "No, I understand."
"You're amazing parents," she explains. "Both of you. But life when I was little was - rough. And I know I'm not doing anyone any favors by getting knocked up at seventeen but-"
"But you want to give him his best chance," Dad says with a small smile. "I understand."
"Look," she says, lowering her voice and glancing again to the kitchen where Mom has deposited Henry on her feet and is teaching him to dance. "I know that something is - different. I know we don't talk about how everyone thinks Mom is my sister, or how both of your birth certificates are fakes - yes, don't think you can fool me; you're the one who sent me to school for law enforcement - or how in twenty-two years you've never told me my 'theories' about the curse were just delusions. I know we don't talk about it but - I haven't forgotten. So please, don't try to get to me through Henry. He doesn't - he doesn't need to think about it. I just want him to be happy."
Dad doesn't look very surprised, just nods and leans over to brush a kiss to her hair.
In the kitchen, the radio is still playing and Mom is swaying from side to side with Henry standing on her toes. She remembers a similar Christmas Eve, eighteen years ago, when Dad had lifted her onto his feet and turned her around the kitchen until she was dead on her feet. So much has changed since then - there's more than enough food on the table, and it's been years since she's heard talk of debt collectors and repossession. And yet, as she listens to the bubbling sound of her mother's laughter, as she sees the look of pure love on her father's face, she thinks not much has changed at all.
Dad nudges her with his elbow, eyes alight with mischief. "Come on. What do you say you and I show your mother and Henry a thing or two?"
.
Twenty-eight
-Believe in what your heart is saying; hear the melody that's playing. There's no time to waste; there's so much to celebrate.-
On Christmas Eve of Emma's twenty-eighth year, the curse isn't broken.
Broken? No. But real?
There was nothing subtle about a job offer coming on her birthday, just two hours away in a town with no record of having ever existed. "So it's true," she'd said, pinpointing the location of Storybrooke on the map, and finding only forest.
"It's true."
She's the savior.
But she hasn't been doing a whole lot of saving.
There had only been one vacancy when they moved here - a loft apartment with room enough for three beds. Three, because her parents had come too, of course. They'd always been insistent on giving her space, not even questioning her moving out with Henry when she'd gotten on her feet. They would have let her come alone, curse and all, if that's what she'd wanted.
She doesn't need them. They've raised her to be independent, to have be fierce like a bandit with the grace of a princess. But she'd wanted them with her.
So when Christmas Eve rolls around, they pull out the decorations and carry on as they always have. They all wrap presents at the last minute, and pick a tree that is too big for the room. Mom bakes too many cookies, while Dad and Henry pretend to string popcorn for the tree (instead, like every year, they eat it).
Emma watches the snow fall outside, coming down in big chunky flakes that blanket the world in white. The town is quiet; there's no light here - no doors opening with the glow of holiday parties, no homes lit with the warmth of family except her own. All she sees is snow, and Leroy stumbling home from the Rabbit Hole half-drunk.
"Emma, honey?"
She turns to find her mother slipping onto the couch beside her. "Yeah?"
"Is something wrong?"
"No," she lies, and she knows that Mom knows - and of course Mom knows that she knows - but she doesn't say anything. "Just - was there Christmas back home? I mean - home home."
Mom smiles faintly. "Yeah, we had Christmas. It was just - different."
"Yeah?"
"Well, for one thing, it wasn't nearly so - commercial." She laughs, and Emma can't help but smile. "We still had gifts, of course, but Henry would probably get a horse instead of an XBox."
Emma laughs. "Really? I would have never guessed."
Mom wrinkles her nose and nudges her in the ribs. "We had a yuletide ball every winter. You would have liked it; there was food and decorations. We'd tell stories and play music. And of course there was dancing-"
Emma smirks. "Sounds familiar."
"It does, doesn't it?" Mom grins. "Except our ballroom was a little bigger."
That night, while Henry falls asleep on the couch, Dad pulls her from the window and turns her in his arms. It isn't the kind of steps they've done before; instead it's an intricate dance from another world - like something from a fairytale. The radio isn't broken, but Mom still sings. It's a song of holly and ivy that Emma has heard and memorized her whole life long.
-You'll have everything you need, if you just believe.-
Merry Christmas, and happy holidays!