"Remind me why I'm here again?" Emma collapsed onto the couch and yawned.
"Because any day now, Neal is going to take his first step and David is busy helping Leroy with… something or other and doesn't think that he will, and I need someone to vouch that it happened and I'm not just seeing things." Mary Margaret flustered as she placed Neal on the blanket she'd laid out on the floor, with a bunch of his favourite toys.
Emma hadn't seen her mother this agitated in a long time. "Hey, what's up?" she asked concerned, patting her mother's arm gently.
"I just-I missed this stage with you and I want to be there for when Neal does it and I want David to be there too." she explained staring at her hands in her lap, avoiding the gaze of her daughter.
Mary Margaret breathed a long sigh, "I wanted David to want to be here when Neal takes his first step." her voice was pained and Emma couldn't help but feel sorry for her mother.
"If it helps, I'm pretty sure I was running before I was walking." Emma joked, trying to make light of the situation.
"Why would you have ran?" Mary Margaret asked confused.
Emma rolled her eyes slightly, "It's just what I've always done." she mumbled under her breath.
"I am sorry though. I should have been there to see you take your first steps. To see you learn how to ride a bike, to see you off on your first day of school, to stick your art projects on the fridge with little alphabet magnets…" Mary Margaret smiled fondly at the possibility, but just as soon as she smiled, a frown took it's place and Emma's heart began to ache thinking of the things that could have been.
Neal was curled up in a ball asleep with his favourite teddy wrapped in his arms in a death-lock grip. Emma picked him up gently and placed him in the crib beside the couch.
"Don't think he'll be walking any time soon." she laughed gently, but Mary Margaret was silent.
Emma looked over at her mother and saw that she was tormenting herself with her own thoughts.
"Hey, don't do that to yourself." Emma said nudging her moms shoulder with her elbow.
Mary Margaret smiled apologetically and sighed, before taking Emma's hand and holding it tightly in both of hers. "Just tell me one thing?" she pleaded, knowing that there was a very high possibility that Emma would build her walls up and hide behind them.
Emma's stomach was making flips, and looked down at their hands in hopes of avoiding her mothers stare.
"What do you want to know?" she asked in a small voice.
"Did they ever read you bedtime stories? Did they hug you when you fell over? Did they-" Mary Margaret listed off her questions.
"Hold up 20 Questions." Emma laughed slightly, taking a deep breath before divulging into her childhood memories, the ones she'd kept under lock and key, the ones she'd tried desperately to forget.
"When I was at my first foster home, they did. They were great, until they had kids of their own and decided they didn't want me anymore and sent me back." Emma remembered aloud, her voice emotionless. "I think they did at the next foster home too, they all pretty much blur together. None of them wanted me for long. Most of them acted as if they had to take me in, not because they wanted to, but because they had to." Emma explained, her tone pissed off and disgusted at the memories. "After that I no longer wanted people to read me bedtime stories. They were always so full of hope and I wasn't going to have a magical talking pet or a fairy godmother that was coming to save me any time soon." she sighed loudly. "Yeah, I learnt that the hard way." she mumbled under her breath.
"Learned what the hard way?" Mary Margaret urged gently. She could tell she was on new territory with Emma, she didn't know what the outcome would be, just that she desperately wanted to know as much about Emma's childhood as she'd let her.
Emma didn't even hear her mother ask, she was lost in thought. Emma began recounting the one time when she had drawn a picture using the crayons from the colouring box in the corner. The green crayon had snapped in half and her foster father at the time had yelled at her, grabbed her by the arm, half-dragged her up the stairs and locked her in her room for hours until the foster mother had gotten home from work. Emma had cried for hours on end, apologising constantly through the door. Receiving only a throaty sadistic laugh in response every time she'd shout sorry through the crack in the door. The foster mother had come upstairs and tucked her in to bed. Emma remembered her gentle touch as she'd trace her fingers over the bruises on Emma's arms. One time she'd rolled up the sleeve of her shirt and showed Emma the same bruises on her arms. Bruise marks from the foster father's grip.
Each night that Emma was staying with them, she'd tucked Emma in and stroked her forehead lightly with her fingertips until she'd fallen asleep. A couple of days after the crayon incident, they returned Emma to the group home she'd frequented often. The man didn't give Emma a second glance, just filled the paperwork in and went to go wait in the car. The woman had crouched down to hug Emma tightly. She'd held both of Emma's hands and looked into her eyes. "You're so special, Emma. Don't let anyone take that imagination of yours away, because in this world imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." Emma can remember not really understanding what the woman had meant, but instead she'd wrapped her arms around the woman's neck and begged her not to leave. The woman had wiped away both Emma's and her own tears. She placed a kiss on Emma's forehead and that was the last time she ever saw that kind woman again.
"Emma?" Mary Margaret waved her hand in front of Emma's face and watched as her daughter snapped out of the trance she was in. "Did he hurt you?" Mary Margaret asked her eyes widening, her tone growing more concerned.
"I can't even remember her name…" Emma said in disbelief. Mary Margaret took the dodging of her question and the expression on her daughter's face as answer enough. He had and more than once.
"As long as she made you feel safe…" Mary Margaret forced a smiled.
"Yeah, she did. She used to tuck me in every single night." Emma smiled at the memory, "And when I'd have nightmares she'd play with my hair and we'd create stories of far away lands until I'd fall asleep." Emma laughed to herself. "We'd gone to the park one time and the ice cream van was there. The lady had bought me an ice cream, it was melting quickly and it dripped all down my shirt. The foster father had gotten angry and walked back to the car, trying not to create a scene for everyone in the park to look at and judge. The lady though spilt hers down herself on purpose too and we rolled on the grass by the swings, laughing at how silly we looked." Emma reminisced.
Mary Margaret was silent, studying Emma's face.
"I shouldn't have let her go back to that man alone." Emma sighed frustrated with herself, shaking her hands free from her mother's hold. She covered her face with her arm and leant back against the couch.
"It wasn't your fault! You were so young, she shouldn't have gone back to him herself." Mary Margaret tried to calm Emma's worries.
"It was my fault. I should have said something, to someone." Emma defended.
"Emma…" Mary Margaret said disapprovingly. She hated seeing the guilt eat at Emma the way it did.
"Well I didn't listen to her anyway, did I? Before I broke the curse with Henry, I had no hope and my imagination was just gone." Emma's tone was harsh. She was beating herself up about it.
"I admire that woman very much." Mary Margaret stated after a few moments of silence.
Emma looked up at her, "You didn't even know her?" she said questioningly, raising a brow in confusion.
Mary Margaret shrugged, then gazed at her daughter lovingly, "Because she was there for you when I couldn't be." she explained, trying to keep her voice even. "She made you feel safe when I couldn't. She laughed with you, she made stories with you." the lump in Mary Margaret's throat was growing as she fought back the urge to cry. "If it wasn't for her sacrifice of taking you back to that group home, then who know where you'd have ended up. She saved your life. She was your saviour when you needed saving, and for that I am forever grateful." Mary Margaret nodded confidently, she was satisfied with her reason for admiring that woman.
Emma squeezed her mother's hand. "You'd have liked her." she smiled.
"I'm sure I would have." Mary Margaret squeezed Emma's hand back.
"I think… I think her name was Evelyn?" Emma wondered aloud after a few moments of silence.
Mary Margaret got up and went straight to the kitchen, she returned with two glasses of wine. "To Evelyn." Mary Margaret held her glass up to Emma.
"To Evelyn." Emma repeated, smiling gratefully at her mother.