Author's Note/Warning: There will be a bit of perspective switching ahead.

Lunchtime came and Emma was looking forward to taking a nap more than she was looking forward to talking to Pino. The night before she was fighting sleep as she tried to complete her homework and at some point lost. She was then awoken after her housemates returned and were noisily getting ready for bed. Emma decided to do the same (though much quieter) since she was so drowsy and therefore she had returned to her room to see the other girls huddled together whispering and giggling (on her bed no less) over something one of them held.

With a shock that had her more awake than she had been in hours, Emma realised what they were holding and talking about was her story. Emma swiftly grabbed her story out of their hands careful not to damage it but too panicked to care that she had hurt the other girl in the process. Emma then berated them for their lack of privacy as they argued with her for her overreaction. In a huff, Emma snatched her pillow and blanket from behind them and marched to the living room couch without another word to them while protectively holding her story. They must have decided that they didn't want to interact with her temperamental self because they had left her alone for the night.

When Emma awoke in the morning she was sore from the couch, torn between remaining angry at them for their actions and feeling guilty about hers. She also had to try not to feel irritated that they were ignoring her to her face but whispering and glancing in judgement at her when they thought she couldn't see or hear them.

On top of all that, half the homework she had stayed up to do looked like scribbles since she had been too sleepy to write legibly and there was no time to rewrite it even though she skipped breakfast to try. In addition to her lousy morning, she was expecting a lousy afternoon as she had forgotten to make herself a lunch and had depleted her meager savings on all the recent purchases for their stupid apartment in the past week. Not that she would have time to buy anything to eat with work right after school.

Emma practically collapsed once she reached her tree, belatedly realising that she nearly landed on top of Pino already sitting in wait for her.

"Whoa, everything…okay?" he asked a bit nervously.

Emma was about to bite out a 'No obviously' when she caught herself just in time. It was attitude like that why he was nervous in the first place. This was Pino, the only person who had unfailingly loved and cared about her. She didn't want to risk losing him because she was frustrated at everything else but him. She rested her head against the tree trunk and let out a deep sigh before moving her eyes over to him. "I'm having a rotten day" she said simply.

"Ah," he nodded in understanding "want to talk about it or would that make it worse?"

Emma continued to look over at Pino ('In person at last!') before turning slightly so she could face him while her head remained resting against the tree. She was nervous about what she wanted to ask but it was something she has wanted to do since she was a little girl.

"Talk but," she paused to take a steadying breath to avoid biting her lip or playing with her fingers. "Could you hold me while I talk?" Emma winced at how vulnerable she was making herself. "I know it's stupid but I've always imagined you would comfort me when I was upset. It helped to think that I could tell you about anything and you would be patient enough to listen."

Pinocchio smiled and wrapped his arms around her without another word, welcoming the feeling of her cuddling up closer to him, seeking comfort from him. 'She must believe me after all,' he thought happily and he kissed the top of her head as she settled.

Emma tensed slightly, not expecting the kiss and quickly wondered if she was making a mistake in trusting him enough to do this so soon.

"Is this the way you always imagined it Emma?" He asked, unsure as to why she had gone so still and silent. Except for stroking her hair and running his hand along her back, this was the only way Pinocchio knew to comfort a girl when holding her. He hoped Emma didn't perceive the gesture as being to intimate. Pinocchio ducked his head down to look her in the face hoping to find some clue as to how she was feeling.

"Yeah," Emma told him as she tried to force herself to believe that her companion was only trying to do as she asked and wasn't going to try to take advantage of her.

"Alright," he was a bit uncertain with her response but continued to hold her to himself and rested his cheek on top of her head. "So tell me what happened."

After a moment's pause she seemed to relax and began to talk. She told him about the events of that day leaving out all of her feelings for him that had influenced her behaviour. She wasn't too surprised then when he asked "Why did you get so upset if all they were doing was reading the story? They may have liked it."

Emma was about to point out that they hadn't even asked first when she was presented with a large sandwich. "You said you didn't have anything to eat" he explained as his hand went back to search his bag lying beside him before pulling out with a bottle of juice. Emma looked at the lunch in her lap in surprise. "Don't worry about me, I can always get more later you need to eat. At least I had breakfast." He told her, likely expecting her to refuse.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" she muttered distractedly. Though she had heard it many times growing up, she only paid attention because she imagined that it would be something her big brother would tell her if he had also been there. She lived a lot of her life by what she thought her brother would approve of, now that he was finally here with her she was beginning to wonder if he would be able to live up to her imagined version of him. She slowly began to eat.

"Exactly" he said, pleased that she had accepted the food he gave her (and by extension accepted him). "Now, why did you get so upset with them for reading the story?"

"Because it's my story; you wrote it for me not them. They'll only destroy it and mock me about it." She said desperate for him to understand. She quickly took another bite afraid that she had said too much.

"I'm sure they won't," he tried to reassure her. "They may not be your friends but-"

"It's happened before." She interrupted bluntly and looking terribly guilty. "I'm so sorry Pino I never meant it to, I just…couldn't stop them."

"Hey, shh it's alright" he soothed as he placed a hand on her shoulder. Pinocchio was surprised that his stories had meant so much to her.

"It's not alright" she replied looking down. "You were in the foster system; you know we don't get a lot of stuff that is truly ours. The few things that are become important to us." She finally looked at him "I should have done a better job of protecting one of the few links I have to my real family. Even if I was too small," she said the last quietly before lapsing into silence while she nervously waited for him to rebuke her. Pino being upset with her for being so careless with something he worked on so hard for her was the only emotion that made sense to her back then and so it was the only emotion she expected now given that she didn't know him well enough to think otherwise.

Pinocchio however was thinking over her words and remembering the old typewriter Dr. James had given to him when it became clear that Pinocchio loved writing. Pinocchio had wanted to refuse something so large at first especially after he heard that it belonged to Dr. James' late mother, but the therapist insisted that his mother would rather want Pinocchio to have it than it ending up in a landfill somewhere. Pinocchio had thought it looked too precious to end up among garbage so he accepted it and had cared for it to this day.

Pinocchio decided that it was time for a change of subject. "You mentioned your homework earlier; how are you doing in school? What are your grades like?"

Emma looked confused for a moment at the sudden change of topic before she returned to looking guilty and not making eye contact. 'This just keeps getting worse for me, but I suppose I owe him the truth.'

"They…probably aren't as high as you would like." After a glance at his questioning face she continued though now her face was flushed with shame. "I'm pretty consistent with C's and D's." She saw him beginning to frown in what Emma assumed to be disappointment. "It's not like I'm stupid or anything; I'm usually able to understand what the teachers are talking about, or at least I think I do, I just don't have enough time to get the homework done, so then I forget things, and that only makes it harder, and…" 'Oh gods Emma you're babbling, you look like a fool, stop talking, just STOP talking!' Emma's jaw snapped shut with an audible click.

Pinocchio looked at her confused by what just happened. "Well I suppose we could meet again later today so I could help you" he offered uncertainly.

Emma grimaced, "can't, I have work later." Then to head off any other offers she added, "my schedule varies by day, the only consistent time I have off is at lunch."

Pinocchio looked thoughtful for a moment before breaking into a grin. "Okay lunch then. I'll bring the food, you'll bring your homework, and together we'll see if we can bring up your grades." Pinocchio was smiling brightly now; helping Emma with school seemed like the perfect way to get to know her better, spend a lot of time with her, and gain her trust.

Emma barely hesitated with returning his enthusiasm with a small smile of her own; she wanted to spend more time getting to know him as well.

1782 words

Author's Note 2: I can't remember for certain now but I think August has an old typewriter he brought to Storybrooke with him.

Ha, up until now I've had to add chapters together to get a chapter of reasonable length. For the first time in this story I actually had to split these last two chapters because they were getting too long.