Snow White's baby girl was sick, and all she wanted was to be with her. To comfort her, to take care of her. To help her feel better in any way she could.
From the moment Charming had ended his conversation with Killian, the only thing either Snow or Charming could think about was getting back home to their sick little girl. "We shouldn't have left her," Snow had said when Charming told her of Emma's symptoms. "I knew she was sicker than she was letting on. We should have canceled tonight."
"We tried, Snow," Charming had reminded her. "She wouldn't hear of it."
"Stubborn girl," Snow had muttered, causing Charming to smile.
"That she is. Takes after someone else I know."
Like Charming had promised Killian, they didn't rush through their meal, even though they both wanted nothing more than to go home and check on their daughter. They'd both let out a sigh of relief when their server had come by with the check.
At long last, Snow and Charming were now entering a seemingly empty apartment. Killian had told them that Emma was asleep and he and Neal were clearly sitting with her while she rested.
"Upstairs?" Charming asked.
"I think so," Snow answered. They both kept their voices quiet in an effort to spare their little girl any further head pain.
Charming started up the steep metal staircase first. Snow had only climbed the first two steps when soft baby babbles reached her ear. The sounds were coming not from the loft above them but from the bedroom she shared with Charming and, for the time being, little Neal. She tapped Charming's shoulder and, when he looked over his shoulder at her, pointed towards the drawn curtain across their bedroom doorway.
He smiled and gave a nod of understanding. Then, as one, mother and father turned on the stairs and headed into their bedroom instead.
The room was mostly dark. From what Snow could see in the light filtering into the room through the curtains, Killian Jones was seated with his back against her headboard, his legs outstretched and little Neal nestled in his arms. Neal, who was polishing off the remainder of a bottle, seemed perfectly content in the pirate's gentle grip. Emma lay curled up facing her pirate and baby brother. Her eyes were indeed closed but she'd clearly awakened at some point between Killian's phone call and now. Her face was pinched from her head pain and her posture was too tense for sleep.
Snow's heart sank in her chest at the sight of her little girl in such obvious pain. Beside her, Charming drew in a breath, one which meant his own half of her heart was aching as much as hers was.
Killian exchanged a silent greeting with Snow and Charming as the two of them stepped further into the room. Snow gave him a grateful smile in return. He'd done a damn good job holding down the fort in their absence.
Again as one, mother and father approached their sick little girl. Charming eased down on the far side of the mattress by Emma's knees. Snow made herself comfortable at the foot of the bed by Killian's feet. Emma stirred at the shifting of the mattress but didn't drag her eyes open until Snow ghosted the tip of her thumb across her cheek.
Despite her pounding headache, Emma gave her mom as big a smile as she could muster. "Hey, Mom." She turned onto her back and reached for her father's hand. Charming gripped it and gave her a gentle smile. "Hi, Dad."
"Hey, kiddo," Charming murmured.
"Hi, baby," Snow replied in a whisper. "How are you feeling?"
"Like my brain is trying to claw its way out of my skull."
Snow exchanged a troubled glance with Charming. Such a level of honesty from their little girl only proved how absolutely terrible she must have been feeling. Nine and a half times out of ten, Emma answered an inquiry into her well-being with a variant of "fine," even if she really wasn't.
"Did the Advil help at all?" Charming asked.
"Didn't even touch it."
Snow once again looked up at Charming, silently telling him that their little girl was due for a round of different medicine. She'd taken the Advil a good three hours ago; more than enough time had passed for her to try something else.
Charming nodded at her, then squeezed Emma's hand before releasing it. He patted her knee, stood, and crept out of the room to retrieve his daughter's medicine.
Emma watched her father leave the room through squinted eyes. Snow ran her thumb over Emma's cheek to recapture her attention. "Any other symptoms aside from the headache and what I'm gathering is light sensitivity?"
"I threw up," Emma admitted, sounding impossibly young. Snow's heart leaped at the whimper in her tone and wanted nothing more than to pull her little girl into a tight hug and never let her go. "It's definitely a migraine. Unfortunately, it won't truly go away until I go to bed for the night. They never do."
Now Snow wondered how many times her sweet baby girl had powered through her migraines until the end of the day because she couldn't remember Emma ever taking the time to let herself rest like this before.
"I've been trying to get her to go to bed for the night," Killian spoke up, tender affection clear as day in his soft tone, "but someone is stubborn."
Suddenly Snow understood the source of Emma's sudden self-care. She gave the former pirate another grateful smile, which he returned.
Emma wrinkled her nose. "I told you why I don't want to go to bed for the night."
"Because you don't want to wake up at early-thirty," Killian sighed. Clearly this was a discussion they'd had at least once before. "I still imagine the oblivion of sleep now would be worth waking with the sun later."
"That's because you always wake up with the sun," Emma retorted, hiding a smile. "The sun gets up a good three hours before I like to."
"Aye, love, we all know."
Emma let out an actual, "Hmph." Snow had to bite her lip to keep from snickering.
"Even still," Snow said once she was no longer in danger of laughing out loud, "we should probably discuss sleeping arrangements. I gather you settled in here because this room is the darkest."
Killian nodded as Emma gave a soft, "Yeah."
And with one look at her baby girl's pain-filled face, Snow made her decision. "Then I think it's best if you stay right where you are tonight."
As expected, Emma argued. "I can't kick you out of your room–"
"You're not kicking us out if we offer," Snow told her gently. "If you're comfortable in here, there's no sense in moving you."
Charming ducked back into the room then, a glass of water in one hand and the other closed around another dose of painkillers for his little girl. "We can take your bed for the night," he agreed, easing back down beside Emma. He pressed two extra-strength Tylenol into her palm, which forced her to sit up as much as she could in preparation for taking the medicine.
"Besides," Snow added, helping her baby sit, "if you've been throwing up, you're not going to want to have to run down those stairs to get to the bathroom."
Emma swallowed the pills down with a gulp of water. She handed the glass back to her father before addressing her mother's point. "I only threw up once."
"But it wasn't that long ago, love," Killian reminded her.
Snow's stubborn baby girl wrinkled her nose but conceded that point to her pirate. The war clearly wasn't over, though, because her unsteady gaze finally locked on her baby brother. "What about Neal?"
"What about him?" Charming asked.
"If I sleep in your room. This is his room, too, remember."
"We'll bring him up to your room for the night with us."
"So now I'm displacing the squirt, too."
The words cut through Snow's heart like a dull knife. Her poor sweet little girl, always assuming she was a burden because that was how she'd been made to feel her entire life. A little girl was who never really seen, never really heard. A little girl who had only wanted what every child wanted and deserved: to be loved. Instead, she'd been tossed aside and overlooked, and oh, how it gutted Snow every single second of every single day to think of her little baby growing up in this world unloved, unnoticed.
She swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and gripped her daughter's hand. "Emma, listen to me." She waited for Emma's pained gaze to focus on her before continuing. "You are not displacing any of us. You're sick and you need to be comfortable. You need to rest. If this is where you're comfortable, then you need this room more than we do tonight. We are more than happy to let you stay here so you can get better."
The dim ambient light in the room made it hard to tell for certain but Snow thought she saw Emma's eyes glisten. It once again hit her that prior to Emma's arrival in Storybrooke, she'd never had any of this. She'd never had people who took care of her. She'd never had people who put her first, who gave up their own beds for the night so she could rest and recuperate.
She'd never been cared for. She'd never been nurtured. She'd never been cherished for the absolutely wonderful, amazing person she was.
The realization made Snow's heart ache probably just as much as Emma's head was.
"Okay," Emma murmured in acquiescence, drawing Snow from her reverie.
Snow, David, and Killian all shared a surprised look. It appeared as if they'd won the war of the wills with Emma after all. "Okay," Snow repeated as she squeezed her daughter's hand. "Now for the next question. Is there anything we can do to help you?"
"You're already doing it," Emma assured her, squeezing her hand back.
The broken pieces of Snow's heart gathered themselves together. She glanced over at Charming, whose own eyes were glistening now, too. Their little girl was allowing them to help her, to take care of her. She was allowing them to help heal some of those emotional wounds along with tending to her migraine.
And they were helping. They were helping their baby girl just by being there for her, and it felt wonderful.
"Is there anything you need?" Charming asked. "More water?" He looked down and spotted the damp cloth laying on the nightstand. "I could refresh the compress."
"No, I don't need anything like that. Just ..." Emma closed her eyes, as if gathering her courage. And when she spoke, she sounded much more like the lonely little girl she'd once been than the independent adult she was now. "Can you guys just stay with me for a little while?"
A touched Snow smiled at her baby girl. Very rarely did she admit to needing their presence but her excruciating headache must have been making her throw caution to the wind. "Of course, sweetheart. While we're here, though, you should try to sleep. It'll help."
Emma sighed. "I really don't think sleep is going to happen."
Before Snow or Charming even had the chance to argue, Killian said, "Well, then, why don't we tell you stories to pass the time, love? All three of us. I know I have plenty of stories in my repertoire and I imagine it's the same for your parents."
He gave both Snow and Charming a pointed look as he said it, and Snow understood in an instant. He was hoping that their soft voices telling rambling stories of a faraway land would lull her to sleep.
Emma seemed to mull it over and eventually said, "Yeah, why not? We're going to need to do something besides awkwardly sitting here and staring at each other."
Snow hid a smirk. Only Emma.