Title: Love is Strength
Disclaimer: Once Upon A Time and its characters belong to Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. Not Mine!
Warning: K+ (Mentions some violence)
Author's Note: Chapter 13! So I got another snow day today, which means a new chapter for you guys! This chapter got away from me, so it is really long! Hope you like it! :) Thanks again for all the reviews! :) Oh I don't know about you guys, but I loved the father/daughter moments on Once last night! :) Life is all about the moments, right?! Loved it! :) Anyway, Enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think of it! :)
3am
"Well the kids are finally asleep." Charming says as he walks over to Snow who was in the kitchen.
"Don't let Emma hear you say that." Snow says with a chuckle.
"Hmm I think I'll take my chances…" Charming says with mischievous grin as he wraps his arms around Snow.
"It's been a long day hasn't it?" Snow said with a sad smile.
"Indeed." Charming said with a grimace.
"I'm worried that Emma is going to get sick." Snow said.
"I think she already is sick. She has been coughing and her voice
has gotten more hoarse throughout the night. She shouldn't go to work tomorrow." Charming replies.
"No, she shouldn't, but she will try to anyway." Snow says, knowing that Emma is stubborn and will not admit to being sick.
"She may try, but she isn't going anywhere." Charming says in a stern voice. He is worried that she would get really sick if she did. "Anyway she needs a sometime to recuperate from today."
"Yes, she does, but I doubt it's going to be easy convincing her of that." Snow said with a sigh.
"Yeah, it probably will be a long day tomorrow too. No one said being parents was easy." Charming says with a grin.
"No, especially when you have Emma as your child." Snow replies.
Charming laughs. "Definitely. She must have gotten her stubbornness from you." Charming says with a mischievous grin.
"Oh and you aren't stubborn at all." Snow says sarcastically to Charming. She pulls away as she gets the tea she made for them.
"Of course not!" Charming chuckles as he sits down at the table.
Snow just gives him a disapproving look. She brings over the mugs of tea and hands one to Charming.
"She was trying to stay awake. She knew that when she fell asleep I would leave her. I think it has something to do with her past though. Never having anyone that stayed with her." Charming told Snow.
"It probably does. She said she has been alone all her life, having no one that really cared about her."
"Well, we are changing that because we won't leave her again." Charming replies with confidence.
"No, we won't." Snow says with a smile at her husband's determination.
"I just hope she doesn't have any more nightmares." Charming says with a grimace thinking of the nightmare Emma had earlier.
"I know. Hopefully she won't have any more. She really needs the sleep after today. She looked so exhausted." Snow said in a worried tone.
"Speaking of being exhausted, we probably should head to bed too." Charming said as he finished his tea.
Snow nodded as she took the mugs to the kitchen. Charming went to turn the lights off and then make sure the door was locked. He wasn't taking any chances with his family's safety.
Both Charming and Snow get ready for bed. Both of them lost in their thoughts.
Charming gets in bed with Snow and kisses her. "Goodnight, love."
"Goodnight, Charming." Snow says as she snuggles up next to her husband. She has always felt safe in arms. She knew that are family would be all right because good always wins.
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"I am sorry, I didn't mean to leave the door open! Please don't lock me in there again." Emma pleaded with Mr. Brown.
Mr. Brown was drunk as usual and had caught Emma when she left the door open when she came inside. He had slapped her across the face and then dragged her to the garage.
Emma winced in pain as Mr. Brown had one hand tightly holding onto the back of her neck. Emma had this punishment a couple times before and absolutely hated it because she hated the dark and the last time he told her that he put spiders in the trunk before he shut it.
"Please, don't put me in there." Emma cried.
Mr. Brown sneered. "You deserve it. You will never amount to anything, but maybe this will show you, your place in this world. You are worthless and just a burden." He roughly threw her in the trunk of the car.
Emma cried, she wished that her parents, her real parents, would come save her from this man. As she looked at him, it wasn't Mr. Brown anymore it was King George. He was sneering at her and holding a snake. "Sweet Dreams, Emma Swan."
She was horrified as he put the snake in the car and shut the trunk.
Emma wakes up with a start and sits up as she gasps for air. Her heart is beating fast again. She notices that David isn't in the room and starts to panic again – her breathing and heart rate escalate quickly. Before she realizes what she is doing, she is getting out of bed to go find her dad - remembering what he said about if she needed him.
She feels dizzy and weak as she stumbles on her way out of the room nearly falling, but managing to catch her self on the railing.
She wakes up a little more and thinks to herself, that she can't do this, go running into to her parents room because she had a nightmare. She is a grown-up for goodness sake. So she turns to go back to her room, but then changes her mind again. Maybe if she was just close enough to him, it would make her feel better. Anyways, she wasn't going to go back to sleep just to dream more about Mr. Brown and King George. She stumbles again when she is half way down the stairs and she tries to catch herself, but ends up tumbling down the rest of the stairs.
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Charming wakes up with a start, but isn't sure what woke him up. Snow is still sound asleep, so he goes to make sure that Emma and Henry are all right. Ugh, it's 3 am. What is it going to take to get some sleep? Charming thinks as he glances at the clock.
He walks out of the room and looks around the apartment wondering what woke him up and turns to go upstairs to check on Emma and Henry.
As soon as he turns, he sees Emma lying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. He realizes suddenly why he woke up. He rushes over to her and kneels down to turn her over on her back. "Emma, Emma, are you okay?" Charming asked frantically.
"Yeah, I am fine." Emma said feeling a little embarrassed about falling down the stairs, but still shaken up about her nightmare and waking up to find David not there.
"What happen?" Charming asked seeing that she looks really worked up over something, just like she did earlier when she woke up from her nightmare. He lifted her up so that she was leaning on his legs. He wanted to make sure she was all right before helping her up.
"I had another nightmare." Emma pauses to catch her breath. "I didn't want to sleep anymore, but I missed the step when I was coming down the stairs." Emma left out the detail of wanting to find him or at least be near him.
"Oh Emma." Charming could tell she was holding something back, but he was worried because she looked a bit delirious. He feels her forehead to make sure she doesn't have a fever. "You are burning up! We need to get you back to bed." Charming says as he goes to pick her up.
"No, I don't want to sleep." Emma said stubbornly.
"Emma, you are sick and exhausted. You need to be in bed." Charming said sternly, yet softly. He turns towards his and Snow's room, "Snow!" Charming calls only loud enough for Snow to hear, he didn't want Henry to wake up.
Snow rushes out of the room wondering what was wrong because Charming's voice sounded worried. She starts to panic when she sees Charming holding Emma in his arms on the floor. Something was not right, Emma looked pale and shaken up. She rushes to kneel on the other side of Emma. "What happen?" Snow cried.
"She fell down the stairs, but she's burning up." Charming tells Snow.
Snow feels Emma's forehead. "Emma did you hurt anything when you fell down the stairs?"
"No, probably just got a few more bruises, I am fine." Emma replied tiredly.
"I have heard that before." Snow said with a grimace, not trusting Emma's answer. She turns to Charming, "We need to get her back to bed."
"Yes, we do." Charming agreed quickly.
"No, I don't want to go to bed." Emma said again.
"She had a nightmare again." Charming informed Snow. "You don't have to sleep, but you need to be in bed, young lady." Charming and Snow exchange a glance and silently decided that it might be better to just put her on their bed instead of upstairs.
"She should probably change first, David. Why don't you bring her to the bathroom while I go get her some pajamas." Snow gets up to go upstairs.
"You two are doing it again…talking about me like I'm not here." Emma grumpily states she rolls her eyes at her parents.
Charming chuckles as he picks Emma up off the floor and carries her to the bathroom.
Emma sighs.
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Snow grabs pajamas for Emma then grabs her pillow off the bed, but then notices that something fell to the ground.
Emma's baby blanket. She knew Emma had her baby blanket still, but she didn't realize that she kept it under her pillow. She will just bring it and put it under her pillow, just in case she needs it.
She quickly checks on Henry who is sleeping soundly and readjusting his blankets so that his feet are covered.
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Charming sets Emma down and is about to leave once again. "Can you just wait till she gets back?" Emma says sounding so much like a child, it's heartbreaking to Charming.
"Of course." Charming says as he sits on the side of the tub. "Are you sure you didn't hurt yourself when you fell down the stairs?" Charming asks as he looks her over.
"I am fine." Emma replies as she rolls her eyes.
"Don't lie." Charming says sternly, knowing she is lying. He doesn't know how, but he can tell when she is lying to him.
Emma hesitates. How does he know I am lying? Must be a dad thing. Ugh. "I may have hit my head again when I fell and I may have landed on my ribs." Emma reluctantly tells her father.
"Emma, why didn't you tell us?" Charming says as he stands up to check her head.
"Because it's fine." Emma replied in an annoyed tone.
"It's not fine. You are bleeding again." Charming responds in a frustrated tone.
"Bleeding? Is she all right?" Snow asks as she comes into the bathroom hearing the end of their conversation.
"Seriously, I am right here!" Emma interrupts her parents and rolls her eyes again.
Both Charming and Snow give her disapproving looks which is way worse than just one of them looking at her like that. She had to look down to the ground to escape their looks.
Charming and Snow shared an amused look after Emma looked down. Snow then took a look at Emma's head and treated it once again.
"I am going to go get some ice for her ribs, she landed on them when she fell." Charming said to Snow.
"Hey, I am…" Emma started but was silenced by another look from her father. "oh alright." Her parents were crankier at 3am in the morning.
"That's what I thought." Charming said with a disapproving frown then left for the ice.
Snow finishes tending to Emma's head and makes sure she is all right. "If you need anything let us know, okay?" Snow says in a concerned tone before she leaves Emma to change. She doesn't like the shade of Emma's skin; it was too pale for her liking.
"Okay." Emma replies as Snow leaves the bathroom.
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"How's she doing?" Charming asked as Snow comes into the kitchen.
"She will be okay, but she is exhausted and looks like she feels terrible, not that she would admit to that."
"No, she probably wouldn't." Charming replies softly. "Just imagine if we raised her, we would have both had grey hair before she was 5."
Snow laughs, "If today is any example of what it would have been like, then yes we would have been grey early."
Charming laughs with Snow, both of them a little slap happy from the lack of sleep and stress from the previous day, not to mention the worry over their sick daughter.
"Has she said anything about her nightmare?" Snow asked Charming after her giggles resolved and her worry set back in.
"Not yet." Charming replies seriously.
"Are you guys talking about me again?" Emma asked in an annoyed yet tired tone as she stumbled a little from the bathroom.
Charming rushed over to her with Snow right behind him. Emma stumbled again and started to fall when Charming caught her and swept her up into his arms not wanting her to fall again.
Emma was so stunned by his quick movements that it took her a second to respond to his overprotectiveness. "Is this really necessary?" Emma said once she found her voice.
Charming chuckles as he replies. "Maybe not, but I am not having you fall again." He realizes that he acted on impulse and perhaps was being a little overprotective.
"I wasn't going to fall." Emma insisted, but then realized that he was taking her to their bed and not hers. She did not want to go to bed at all because then her nightmares would come back. She was about to protest to being taken to their bed, but then realized that she would be closer to her father, which would help with her recent development of separation anxiety.
Charming lays her in their bed.
"We need to take your temperature, Emma. Charming can you go get the thermometer?" Snow asks as she feels Emma's forehead.
Charming is off before Snow can finish her sentence. Emma is a little disappointed when he leaves, but knows he will be back soon. And he is back sooner than she would have thought with the thermometer, some medicine, a glass of water and the bag of frozen peas that she has come to loathe.
Charming comes over to the bed and hands Emma the thermometer. "Here, we need to take your temperature."
Emma grabs the thermometer from David and reluctantly puts it under her tongue. Emma tries to look at the reading as she is waiting for it to beep which her parents share an amused smile over.
The thermometer beeps and Emma goes to take it out, but isn't fast enough because her father grabs it first. "Hey!" Emma says grumpily.
"101.5." Charming states, ignoring Emma's protests.
"Here, Emma, take this it will help bring your fever down and help your cough." Snow said as she gave Emma the medicine and the glass of water. "And lets put this on your ribs." Snow told Emma.
Emma was going to protest to putting the cold bag of peas back on her ribs, but thought better of it since Snow was obviously back in her overprotective mom mode. "Ok." Although, it was very annoying most of the time, it was nice to have a mother that took care of her. She has never had people to take care of her like this before and it is a nice feeling to be cared about enough to be up at three in the morning for them.
"Ok, young lady, you need to sleep now." Charming says, knowing that Emma is not going to want to sleep.
"I am not tired." Emma lies, not wanting to go back to sleep in case she has another dream about Mr. Brown or King George.
"Emma. We all know that's not true. Is it because of the nightmare you had?" Charming asked softly.
"Yeah." Emma replies softly.
Snow reaches over and holds Emma's hand. "What was it about?"
Emma hesitates as she looks from Snow to Charming and then back to Snow. Snow gives her an encouraging look and squeezes her hand. "It was a dream about Mr. Brown which actually happen. I left the door open and he caught me. He slapped me and dragged me out to the car while telling me that I was never going to amount to anything, that I was worthless and a burden. He put me in the trunk of the car, but when I looked up it wasn't Mr. Brown. It was King George and he put a snake in the trunk then shut it. I woke up right about then." Emma finished as she coughed; her breathing had started to escalate while she was telling the story causing her to go into a coughing fit.
"Okay, just breathe, Emma. It was just a dream." Charming rubbed her back as she coughed, thinking of Emma's new nightmare of her past and then King George. Charming hates the fact that King George is plaguing Emma's dreams along with this man who put HIS daughter in the trunk of the car. He wishes that there was some way that he could prevent her from having these nightmares, some way to take away of the fear. "Neither of them are going to hurt you while you are with us. I won't let anything happen to you, sweetheart." Charming said as he looked into Emma's eyes.
Charming had an idea; it helped him when he had nightmares along with both Snow and Henry after their sleeping curses.
"Here" Charming says as he lights the candle on the bedside table. "When I was younger and I had a nightmare, my mother, your grandmother, use to light a candle for me to keep the nightmares away. It always helped me to sleep after a nightmare." He turned back towards Emma. "So this should keep the nightmares away. And Emma, we will both be right here, we aren't going anywhere." Charming gave Emma a soft smile and Snow squeezed Emma's hand.
It was strange because although she knew that a candle wouldn't necessarily keep the nightmares away, she was comforted by it anyway. Maybe it was because she trusted her father and believed that he was telling the truth about not letting anything happen to her. Was this what it was like to have a father? To have a mother? To be able to let go and trust someone else, she always relied on herself. It was nice to be able to let down her walls and trust someone else, in this case her parents. She has never had that kind of relationship where you could take a leap of faith knowing that that person would catch you when you did. Like a child knowing that their father would catch them when they jumped. Blind faith. She found herself trusting her father and trusting her mother. Part of her thinks she has trusted them all along, but her walls kept her from letting go to let them catch her. Maybe it was time to let go and trust that her parents would catch her.
"Do you think you can go to sleep now?" Charming asked after Emma's breathing return to normal.
"Yeah. I think so." Emma replied.
Snow squeezed her hand, "We will be right here if you need us."
"Okay." Emma trusted her parents, but was still fearful. Even when you take a leap of faith it can be terrifying letting go.
"Well, then princess, it is time for you to go to sleep." Charming stated with a grin.
Snow got into the bed and Charming started to get settled in the chair beside the bed.
"Can you….I mean…we can make room for you." Emma stumbled through her words. Emma scooted over closer to her mother, leaving a place for David on the bed.
Charming could tell that she wanted him to be near her and he was touched that she wanted him near her. He got in the bed by Emma thinking that this is how it should have been when Emma had nightmares when she was younger. She would have been comforted and loved by her parents. "Goodnight, Emma." Charming said lovingly.
"Goodnight, Dad." Emma mumbled softly. "Goodnight, Mom." Emma added.
"Goodnight, sweetie." Snow said as she put her arm around Emma.
Emma relaxed and fell asleep knowing that her parents were there for her and she wasn't alone. Her mom's arm was around her and her father was holding her hand like before. "Love you." Emma said not realizing that she said it aloud.
Charming and Snow looked at each other over Emma and smiled. "We love you too, Emma." Charming said softly as he kissed her forehead at the same time as Snow kissed the other side of her forehead.
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