~8~
Title: Three Wishes
Rating: PG
Warnings: some language, adult topics
Characters/Pairings: Kay, Sam, original character, pre-Sheridan/Luis
Summary: prompt: magic. "I see that," Sheridan answered, smiling down at the three sprinkles, red, blue, and yellow, that Emma had managed to rescue and held cupped in the palm of one sticky hand. "Why don't you make a wish?" she suggested.
Emma burst through the doors of the Harmony PD, tears streaming down her cheeks, curly ponytail streaming behind her as she made a beeline for Luis's office.
With one look at the four-year-old's flushed face, Luis quickly dismissed the caller on the other end of the phone, hung up, and stepped out from behind his desk just in time to catch the little girl as she flung herself into his waiting arms. Kay skidded to a stop in the open doorway of Luis's office, her concerned father behind her, and could only shrug her shoulders at Luis's inquisitive look.
Still catching her breath, Kay's explanation was spotty at best. "Her teacher said she was fine before snack time, but she's been crying ever since. If you ask me, that Tucker kid had something to do with it. He's nothing but a…"
"That's enough, Kay," Sam took his daughter by the shoulders and started to steer her in the opposite direction. "I think Luis can take it from here."
"Sheridan's not home yet, and she wanted you anyway," Kay said.
Nodding, Luis offered, "I'll take her home." He looked to Sam to make sure it was okay for him to cut out early, and finding no objections, with Emma still tightly clinging to his neck, he shouldered the sparkly pink backpack that Kay held out to him.
"It's a pretty light day," Sam agreed. "Why don't you take Miss Emma out for an ice cream?" he suggested, pulling out his own wallet and withdrawing a handful of bills. "It's on me." To Kay, he voiced a reminder, "Don't you have a paper due tomorrow? Last I checked, you hadn't started it."
"I work best under pressure," came Kay's rapid-fire response.
"Kay, your mother and I agreed to let you take these online courses, provided you stay on top of the work. If you're not…"
"Dad, dad," Kay groaned, effectively cutting off her father mid-lecture. Tugging on Emma's sneaker clad foot, she leaned over to whisper in the little girl's ear.
It was Sam's turn to groan when he heard just what she had to say.
"Next time Tucker's mean to you, you stomp his foot like I showed you and tell your teacher it was self-defense." Shrugging off Luis's wide-eyed, skeptical response, she huffed, "It's never too early for a girl to learn to take care of herself. I'm sure Sheridan would agree."
Luis left the station behind to the tune of father and daughter arguing the merits of teaching a four-year-old how to skirt the system. He had to smile when he heard her ask Sam a tricky question just before he closed the door and stepped out onto the sidewalks of Harmony.
"Where's my ice cream money?"
It was a beautiful day outside so Luis decided to forego the jeep in favor of taking an afternoon stroll. He felt Emma's little fingers playing with the collar of his shirt and knew it was only a matter of time until she felt comfortable enough to talk to him about what had her so upset. It wasn't until they were seated on a park bench, however, Emma's colored sprinkles floating in her melting vanilla ice cream, that the tight-lipped little girl finally blurted out a question that floored him.
Her dangling feet kicking back and forth restlessly, Emma ducked her honey-gold head shamefully and refused to meet Luis's eyes. "Was I a bastard baby, Uncle Luis?"
"Emma-bug," Luis lapsed into Sheridan's endearment for the tiny child, reaching over and pulling her into his lap so that he could look into her glistening blue eyes, so innocent and full of hurt for something she still couldn't quite grasp. "Who taught you that word?"
Ducking her face from Luis's view again, Emma pressed her nose into the crook of his neck, inhaling the comforting scent of him, and mumbled, "Tucker." Folding and unfolding his collar between her small fingers fretfully, she turned so that her lips brushed against his neck with each word she uttered. "Tucker's daddy says I'm something ugly, and the only reason Teacher is nice to me is because of Mama being a Crane. Only Mama ain't a real Crane no more cause she made her daddy so shamed of her he don't want nothing to do with her or me. And that nobody's ever gonna marry me or Mama cause we're nothing but trash dressed in fancy clothes."
For several long seconds following Emma's tearful monologue, Luis was so angry he found he couldn't talk. He wholeheartedly shared Kay's opinion of the preschool terror that had dared to hurt the precious little girl in his arms, but he knew he had to rise above the sentiment. Mean-spirited or not, the boy was still just a child, and someone had to be the adult here. He guessed it had to be him. So he gathered up his thoughts and attacked the boy's (father's) ugly message, point by point. Combing his large hand through Emma's thick, curly hair, he pressed his lips to her forehead and told her, "You, Emma Katherine Crane, are beautiful, inside and out, and don't you ever let anyone else tell you anything different, you hear me?"
Emma lifted her head to look at him, teardrops clinging to her lashes. "As pretty as Mama?"
"Even prettier," Luis affirmed, earning himself a small smile. "And your teacher's not just nice to you because of who your mama is. She's nice to you because you're one of the prettiest and smartest and most polite little girls there is."
Emma's flicker of a smile grew with each lovingly spoken word, and she sniffled, rubbing the tears from her blue eyes with her fists as he continued.
"And this business about being a real Crane…your mama was so proud to know she was having you, she wanted to be the kind of Crane she knew your grandmother would have wanted her to be. That's why she left and moved into your house with you, and anybody would be lucky to marry you or your mama."
"He's right, Emma-bug," Sheridan voiced her agreement behind him. "Especially about you."
"Mama!" Emma launched herself into Sheridan's arms, toppling her forgotten ice cream and scattering stickiness and rainbow sprinkles all over the park bench, forcing Sheridan to sit a little closer to Luis than she normally would have.
Luis looked deep into Sheridan's grateful blue eyes, felt the brush of her hand against his own, and couldn't help but wonder. "How much of that did you hear?"
Sheridan answered him with a non-answer and a tease of a smile. "You think I'm pretty?"
Luis groaned. "Don't let it go to your head, Crane."
"Mama," Emma interrupted. "Look! Colored sprinkles!"
"I see that," Sheridan answered, smiling down at the three sprinkles, red, blue, and yellow, that Emma had managed to rescue and held cupped in the palm of one sticky hand. "Why don't you make a wish?" she suggested.
Emma's blue eyes widened with pleasure, her earlier tears a thing of the not-so-distant past. "Three wishes!"
"Now I've heard of everything," Luis shook his head.
"You did say she was smart," Sheridan's eyes twinkled back at him as Emma screwed her eyes shut tight and made her wishes, in quick succession, ending with her grabbing both adults' hands in her own (sticky) hands and giving them a secretive smile that had both of them squirming slightly in their seats. "Emma," Sheridan asked nervously. "What did you wish for?"
Emma shook her head, her ponytail whipping back and forth behind her. "I'm not telling."
"Maybe she's not the most polite little girl I've known," Luis was forced to concede.
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