Chapter Six- What Hurts the Most
I'm not afraid to cry,
-I never thought that I'd be doing this, writing my feelings down in some book and hoping it will atone for all of my grievances. Never thought that I wouldn't be a man enough to tell you this to your face Lady Bug, but you deserve the truth and an explanation...I know I wasn't always the best father, I wasn't always there to protect you. I suppose that's one of the reasons I enlisted, that and I didn't want my little girl to grow up with an alcoholic parent. I hope the one thing I did right by you, was telling you every chance I could that I love you, because I do! You're the other half of my heart that kept me going when I was ready to give up in that desert.
She couldn't bring herself to read pass the first paragraph, she didn't feel emotionally ready for the implications that his journal held. The stinging in her eyes told her this, as she gently closed the book and slipped it back into the duffle bag. As angry as she was at Ingrid, she knew most of it was projected from her anger at Jonathan for putting her in this situation. Sure she was upset that Ingrid didn't try hard enough to see her during the fourteen years she was with her father. However she realized that ultimately it was her father who decided to leave her alone in this world.
There was a soft knock at the door, and Emma muttered a quick 'Come in" as she rubbed roughly at her face.
"Do you need a moment?" Zelena frowned peaking her head in the doorway but not yet coming into the room.
"No..what's up?" Emma asked, noticing the way Zelena fidgeted at the door.
"Well I'm not really sure how things like this go. I never really have people over but I was wondering if you'd like to watch a movie and I'd order a pizza or something." Zelena furrowed her eyebrows as she thought about what she was saying.
"That sounds a bit like a date." Emma teased.
"Maybe, if you weren't infatuated with my sister and I with yours." Zelena muttered, causing Emma's jaw to drop.
"What?! Please tell me its the not-so bitchy but has a resting bitch face one. Kathryn?" Emma scooting closer towards Zelena and patted a spot on the bed. When Zelena didn't offer an answer, but sat down blushing Emma groaned.
"It's not Elsa is it?" Emma whined, watching Zelena look away.
"I'm conflicted. She's my best friends little sister. Normally she's a really sweet girl, and we've kissed a few times but the way she treated you...that was a new side of her that I quite frankly want no part in." Zelena admitted.
"Damn, look don't let me be the cause of your relationship flipping!" Emma protested.
"It isn't you, and there wasn't even a damn relationship. We would have had to sneak around because she was too nervous to tell Kat, and I'm glad I avoided the situation in general. Why go through all of that trouble for someone with a terrible personality hidden underneath the surface?" Zelena argued.
"Yeah but she's really only a terrible person when it comes to dealing with me. I'm sure we all have that one person that just grinds our gears." Emma pointed out.
"While that may be true, you did nothing to her. She was angry long before you ever stepped foot into that house." Zelena sighed deeply.
"Yeah this sounds like a Netflix's, pizza and cry about the unattainable females in our lives. Too bad I'm too young for booze." Emma exhaled dramatically, watching a grin break out on Zelena's face for the first time since she stepped into the room.
"Are you speaking of my sister?" Zelena propped herself up to look down at the blonde. Emma eyed her warily, but for some reason she felt she could trust the red head.
"Yeah I guess." Emma mumbled.
"You guess?" Zelena raised an eyebrow amused.
"I'm conflicted." Emma copied the older girl's excuse.
"I bet you are!" The older woman cackled.
"I am. One one hand she's beautiful, easy to talk with and she speaks her mind...but you turn that hand over and she doesn't know when not to use her own input, she's in a committed relationship and she has this patronizing attitude sometimes." Emma frowned.
"Oh my dear girl, it sounds like you've been hit by cupid's arrow." Zelena smirked.
"AND that's where this conversation ends. You order the pizza, mushrooms and broccoli on my side and I'll get the movie." Emma scrambled off the bed, hearing Zelena laughing behind her.
Dinner was a very quiet affair, with the only sounds being their silverware hitting the china they were eating off of. For the first time in a week, Elsa had been able to relax enough to finish the little bit she put on her plate before going back for seconds. However as she chewed her food slowly, she thought about the way Zelena had taken up for Emma. The implications in her jealous mindset had her green eyed monster clawing at the surface of her skin.
"What happened earlier?" Kathryn broke the silence, watching Phoebus and Ingrid look at each other.
"Nothing to worry about Kit Kat." Phoebus shoveled steamed cauliflower into his mouth before chewing thoughtfully.
"I think that's the problem right now. Neither of you are worried about it. I mean I can practically feel Elsa's smug ass attitude from here, and you're not too far off from her. Mom is acting like her daughter didn't just leave, again!" Kathryn hissed, setting her fork down before sitting back in her chair.
"I'm not being smug! Am I happy she left? Yes! Do I really give a damn? Not really." Elsa scooped some more mashed sweet potatoes onto her plate.
"You make me sick! She didn't even do anything to you but you were acting like you had this big chip on your shoulder. She's your little sister." Kathryn couldn't contain her disdain.
"Girls!" Phoebus tried to stop the argument but it was no use.
"She isn't anything to me but someone who shares the same DNA. We didn't grow up as sisters, so don't expect me to treat her like one! She has ruined this family for too long." Elsa argued.
"How the hell could a two year old ruin a family? Whatever happened all those years ago, happened because of something between Mom, Jonathan and Phoebus! We never got the whole story or even part of it! You've been jealous of a girl for fourteen years because of what exactly?" Kathryn's eyes blazed with barely contained rage, however her comments had Elsa speechless.
"You can't possibly believe there is any truth of what she said. Mom tell her!" Elsa exclaimed
"Yes mother, tell us!" Kathryn glared at the woman who gave birth to her.
"Kathryn Elizabeth Midas!" Phoebus slammed his silverware down.
"What do you want to know?" Ingrid looked down at her plate, pushing around the food slowly.
"I want to know everything! I want to know why the hell Jonathan was able to get custody of Emma and why we never saw them again. What the hell happened to our family?" Kathryn demanded an answer
"You don't have to do this!" Phoebus argued, glaring at Kathryn who wasn't backing down.
"Jonathan and I got married when I was a teenager, because I was pregnant with you Katie. I was never in love with him, but he was my best friend and at the time that was enough for me. Elsa came along next and then Emmalyn. She was always a quiet toddler but she was sneaky too...We had hired Phoebus on almost four months prior and for me there was always this connection." Ingrid looked both of her children in the eyes, and she could see the conflict in Elsa's.
"Mom..." Elsa's voice wavered.
"I need to do this baby girl. I can't keep hiding this." Ingrid shook her head.
"I cheated on Jonathan and began and affair with Phoebus. We were always so careful that it was never around you guys. I didn't want to hurt anybody." Ingrid whimpered.
"Mom stop." Elsa bit down on her bottom lip.
"You two were at soccer and dance but Emmalyn was getting over a cold. She was so fussy so I put her down for a nap. I didn't know that the gate to the pool was unlocked...Jonathan was supposed to be at work but he came home to check on Emma. He found me in bed with Phoebus. He was so angry, he was planning on just taking Emma and picking you guys up from where you were but we couldn't find her. She wasn't where I had put her down for her nap, and at first I wasn't too worried about what that meant. I thought all of the doors were closed. Somehow she had gotten into the pool, she was face down in the water and her lips were purple. I just panicked and Phoebus called for an ambulance while Jonathan did CPR. She was on a ventilator for nine days before she woke up. Jonathan had went to a judge to get emergency custody of all of you but she didn't think he was capable of raising three little girls. However she didn't think I was capable of raising a toddler , so she gave him custody of Emma. I had gotten weekend visitation rights initially but he went and got a restraining order placed against me and hopped town." Ingrid watched both girls absorb the information.
"What else?" Kathryn knew her mother was holding something back.
"I found them, several times. I had a private investigator follow Emmalyn around but he spooked her once. She was only seven, and she didn't know why a grown man was following her around. Jonathan had just come back from a small tour and he contacted me. He said if I didn't leave him and Emma alone that he would push for full custody of all of you now that he was at a better place in his life. I was
in therapy, it wouldn't have been a stretch. I had already lost one of my babies, I didn't want to loose you two so I signed away my rights and I tried to move on." Ingrid took a deep gulp of her Riesling before topping it off.
"So if I was breaking it down in simpler terms, you cheated on Jonathan while Emma was home. She nearly died, he got custody of her and moved away and then to keep us you signed away your rights?" Kathryn ground her teeth after she asked the question. Ingrid just nodded.
"That doesn't explain why he never came back to see us! All we were worth was a birthday card and a few hundred dollar bills!" Elsa spat
"Jonathan was a man of pride. He didn't want to come back and see me with Phoebus, and he didn't want to see you two with him either. We both would have had split custody and he would have had to hear about you spending time with the man your mother cheated with." Ingrid replied honestly.
"And you thought it was Emma who ruined our family? The woman you should be blaming is the same one you keep sticking up for!" Kathryn sneered, before throwing down her napkin and stalking out the room.
"Elsa I-" Ingrid swallowed deeply
"No! I don't care about what happened. You're still my mother, and the parent who raised me. Phoebus is my dad, he was there when Jonathan wasn't! We all make mistakes but I'm not going to be the one to hold it over you head like them." Elsa shook her head before looking down at her plate. She desperately wanted to be comforted by Zelena but the red head wasn't speaking with her at the moment and seeing her would mean seeing Emma.
"I think I'm going to bed now." Elsa quickly left the room.
"I still think you shouldn't have told them that. All it did was stir up old feelings and make them feel hurt and angry about something that happened years ago." Phoebus told his wife.
"This was something that they needed to know. Who am I to keep this from them any longer? It shouldn't have been a secret to begin with." Ingrid denied before leaving the room also.
Zelena and Emma had gotten through several old kids movies including Lady and the Tramp, Aladdin, and they were now in the process of starting Tarzan. The pizza laid in front of them, still warm as the girls prepared the couch once more with blankets, pillows and some soda.
"I used to do this all the time when I came back. The kids movies have a lot of deeper meanings than people realize. It really touches your heart. Plus they rarely have some random explosion in the background." Zelena informed her.
"They used to make me feel safe when my dad was overseas. There was always a happy ending, it sort of gave me hope." Emma admitted.
"It's nice being able to do something like this with someone without them looking at you strange. I mean Elsa and I watched movies, but there was always a distraction." Zelena sniffed.
"You miss her don't you?" Emma turned to look at the older girl.
"I feel like I'm a bad person for saying yes." Zelena closed her eyes briefly
"You aren't a bad person, you're human. I miss my dad and he did some worse things to me. At the end of the day we miss the good person in them, but we also miss just being in their presence. The good and the bad." Emma said softly, playing with the dog tags around her neck.
"You mean like breaking your arm, or trying to kill you?" Zelena said before she could stop herself. Emma tensed up but only slightly.
"My arm was an accident, I never blamed him for that. Is it wrong that I'm angry that he couldn't go through with it? Sometimes I feel like I'm on autopilot, all I can feel is so much anger or pain. Then I just go numb. Will I always feel like this?" Emma asked
"I hope not. I just don't think that he could bare taking you away from this world, you have a lot to offer." Zelena smiled sadly at the girl.
"I'd rather he had taken me, then just leaving me here alone. This is like knowing he was going overseas and that I wouldn't see him for a long time, but now I know he isn't coming back. He's never coming back. I'll never hear his voice, hear him laugh, ask him for advice. He won't be here to yell at me to do good in school, to see me graduate or go to prom. He won't meet my kids or see me get married. He won't be here to protect me, he's really never coming back." The tears rushing down her cheeks itched her flesh.
"Just because he's gone in body, doesn't mean he's gone in spirit. All of those things, he will see. You got to believe that. And if you ever for some reason need someone to protect you, I'll be that person, doll." Zelena scooted over and began wiping Emma's tears with her long sleeved P.J top. Bringing the girl into a crushing hug, she rocked her until the tears stop.
"Oh my goodness, this is so embarrassing. I'm sorry." Emma blushed when she seen the small wet spot on the top of Zelena's shoulders from where her tears soaked through.
"Don't worry about it. Like I said I'm here if you need to talk. If you need to cry, I'm here for that too." Zelena waved her off, hearing the doorbell go off. Leaving so Emma had time to collect herself she went to answer the door.
AN: So people have been telling me that the infrequent updates are killing the story for them and I want to apologize for that. I'm going to try to do better with updating more frequently for you guys. As an apology you got this a week early :)
