Two Households Of Dignity

By Schroederplayspiano

Chapter 14: The Crashes Are Heaven For A Sinner Like Me

"Emma," Snow White says softly. "Please," she begs.

Her daughter doesn't respond. Instead Emma grabs my arm and loops her hand around it, making sure I stay with her.

While I know the family is in a horrible situation, I wonder why her parents are treating Emma with so much delicately.

Prince James breaks from his wife and approaches the porch. "Emma, honey." I've never heard so much love and care in his voice before. "We're – I'm so sorry." He walks to the edge of the porch steps, knowing coming any closer would be pushing limits. "Please, can we talk to you for just a minute? We were only trying to get to know you. We never meant to betray you."

Betray her? How could her parents who, couldn't love anything more in the world, betray her?

"Emma, just-" Prince James' words are caught behind his emotion; his apology clearly not enough. "Can you please look at me?"

Instead of looking at her Father right away, Emma's eyes rise to find mine, obviously asking me what to do. After the one second of eye contact between us, I refuse to look at her. Since her parents are treating me as an invisible man, that is the character I take on. I maintain an emotional distance with the three of them. Even as Emma clings to me, I don't reciprocate.

"I don't want to talk to you right now." Emma stats, her eyes finally on her Father's. "Please leave me alone."

Thinking she her words were final and she made her point, Emma closes her eyes and leans her head back against my arm.

Alarms are going off in my head. Emma's actions make me uncomfortable for two reasons. She has literarily put me in the middle of her and her parents, and she is using me as shield to avoid them.

"No," I stand up. Emma upper body falls on the swing from lack of support. Prince James finally sees me. He looks at me with confusion and gratefulness. I turn back to Emma who is still on the swing. "You're not going to use me to hide from them, Emma."

Emma stands and walks closer to me. "You don't even know what they did," she whispers angrily into my face.

"It doesn't matter!" I whisper strongly back. "They are you're parents. You can't use me to hide from them, or avoid them, or make problems worse between you guys. That's not why I'm here!"

"I know that!" Emma responds in her normal tone. "Avoiding my parents is not why I came to you."

Really? Because that's sort of what it looks like.

And it's definitely how it feels like.

"Good." I decide I don't want to hear her explanations. "Because that would honestly make me think less of you."

My words hurt her. The shock and pain are on her face. For once, I don't care.

A single tear escapes her left eye. "What do you want me to do?"

Her words take me aback. I blink. They also tell me she is too upset to think straight.

"I want you to hear your parents out." I tell her unsympathetically. Emma begs for friendly understanding, I give her none. "I know they are problems between you guys and there probably always be, but they are your parents and they love you." Emma opens her mouth to argue, but I speak over her. "I know you're upset, you have every right to be, but you need to at least hear them out, and then we can see where goes from there."

Emma's anger boils as she hears my words. I keep a stern face. Henry was right, we do need to grow up, this is me trying.

She turns back to her Father and finds her Mother has walked to the porch as well.

"I'm looking at you," she says flippantly. To further show her annoyance, Emma crosses her arms.

I wish she wouldn't.

Her parents try to ignore and forgive her behavior. I note it's more than Father and Jiminy did for me.

"We are so, so sorry Emma." This time Snow White apologizes. "We really didn't know how private your box was."

Her box? What box? I'm confused.

"We did hear you when you asked us not to look in there." Prince James says in his loving voice. "We, I, just want to know you, who you are as a person. And you make it very difficult to do." Snow White coughs, trying to signal something to her husband. "Which, we did learn, is not your fault." Tears form behind his eyes. "We're trying everyway we possibly can to respect your privacy and your secrets, but you still give us nothing." He says softly as the tears run down his face. He waits for a moment to see if Emma will speak, but she doesn't. "You are our daughter, and we love you so much, Emma, more than you could possibly know. And we're so sorry."

When I look at Emma's face, it is clear she is doing everything she can to hold back her own tears.

"I thought we were trying to build trust between us," Emma says faintly.

"We are!" Snow White cries. She steps closer to Emma and tries to reach for her. "And that is what's so heartbreaking to us. We never meant to put that in jeopardy." Tears also run down her eyes at her realization.

"You did!" Emma transforms into an enraged being. "You broke all trust between us. All the effort put into fixing our issues is now wasted! There are items in that box that no parent should see! That no child should see! And the three of you went through all of it! You now know all these private details about my life that you don't have a right to know!"

"We're sorry!" Prince James' voice raises over his daughter's loud enough to attract Father and Jiminy out from inside.

Great.

Prince James lowers his voice, but he seems unaware of his new audience. "But let's not pretend you haven't made mistakes to question our trust, Emma."

I feel Emma's anger move through her as I stand slightly behind her.

Snow White puts her hand warningly on Prince James, "Charming," she whispers.

"What are you talking about?" Emma asks with an innocent face.

Prince James hesitates for a moment, but his words escape him before he can think. "You're here, aren't you? The one place we told you not to go. You are spending time with people we've told you we do not trust. I have asked you repeatedly to stay away from Pinocchio and Geppetto, but you do not trust my word enough to listen to it!"

"I would, if it had any basis at all!"

Emma, just because you have forgiven my Father doesn't mean your Father has.

"Emma," Prince James tries again, adjusting his voice so it loses its edge. "It hurts me that you trust Geppetto and Pinocchio more than your own family."

Wow.

I turn to Emma to find she is as shocked as I am. Without moving I search out Father and Jiminy for their reactions. Jiminy is more impressed and surprised than Father, but of course Father hasn't been in therapy with them to know how big a step Prince James' words probably were.

Emma steps closer to her father, a sad but understanding smile on her face. "I don't see it that way," she whispers.

Prince James doesn't know what to say. I scan my family and hers to understand her words have caught everyone off guard.

After moments of silence, Snow White asks softy, "How do you see it, Emma?"

Emma looks at her mother's heartbroken face and drops her arms to her sides. "I don't know. I don't see it as black and white as you guys do." Emma keeps her voice as a whisper, and I'm impressed. "It's not about trusting one group versus the other. I don't like that both of you," she eyes her parents. "Have put me in the middle of your fight with them," Emma motions to Father and me. "I see it as they are my friends and you are my family. I need my friends to be able to stay sane, that's how I see it." Emma takes a deep breathe and turn directly to her Father, "You don't get to take away my one true friend just because you are my Father."

"Emma," Prince James lets another tear run down his check. "We need you."

"And I needed you like 20 years ago." Emma raises her voice to its normal tone. "And now I need to go hide because I'm emotionally overloaded again." She turns to me, and I see her pain in her body and her stress in her face. "Did I hear them out enough for you?"

I scan her and can't help saying, "Yes. Yes, you did."

"Good." Emma says firmly. "Can I go hide now?"

"Uh," I feel trapped again. I don't know an answer that will please everybody. I look at her Father in hopes his disapproval will tell me what to do, but there's nothing on his face but heartbreak and concern. "Yeah."

"Great." Emma turns towards her parents in one rigid motion. "I will be home after dinner if you guys leave me alone for a couple hours. Please tell Henry his gameboy is under my bed if he finishes the dishes." She lets a moment pass before walking to our screen door.

Wait, she's hiding here?

"You're staying here?" Prince James asks, disbelief in his voice.

Emma flings the screen door open. "If you want me to come home after dinner," she threatens, shoves the front door open, and walks through.

When Emma is out of sight, the rest of us stand awkwardly on the porch, refusing to face one another.

"Well," Jiminy breaks the silence. "That was more productive than all of our therapy sessions put together."

I can't help but smile at his words. I turn to Jiminy to see him smiling as well.

Snow turns to her husband. "Emma will be fine here for a couple hours. I think the best thing we can do right now is leave her alone," Snow White tells him. The couple looks at each other for a moment, silently communicating. "And speaking of dinner. I promised Henry he could help me cook and I still have some shopping to do." She squeezes her husband's arm and then puts a hand up to the rest of us as a goodbye. "I'm sorry for involving you in such a private family matter." She says and then turns to walk away.

I look back at Father and Jiminy to silently figure out a way to face Prince James and find Father has already gone inside.

Jiminy, Prince James, and I are alone on the porch.

Before I can work myself up to freak out, Prince James interrupts my thoughts. "How do you do it?" He asks me softly.

Is this the first time he has spoken to me with respect?

"Do what?" I match his tone.

"Gain her trust like that." He tells me. "Be the person she runs to instead of the person she runs from. I'd give anything for that, but she's been running from us to you since day one."

A thousand answers and explanations come to my head. My shock at his respect is still preventing me from speaking.

"They've built a relationship of trust before the curse even broke." Jiminy steps in for me. "I think that's a big part of it."

"Maybe." Prince James concedes.

Was that him actually accepting our friendship?

Finally.

"But, Emma trusted Snow before the curse broke too, and," He motions to the house and then to where Snow White left. "As you can see that went to hell."

"It hasn't gone to hell." I speak because I finally have words I know he wants to hear. "I know Emma wants to trust you guys, especially her mother. I just hope you won't continue to give her reasons not to." I make a conscious effort to speak very softly.

"How does she trust you?" Frustration and anger start to show in his face. "I would think just knowing who you are is reason enough not to trust you."

His words hurt. I look at Jiminy and he knows they do. He stands up straighter and smiles at me, giving me enough confidence to say what I need.

"I accept who she is," I tell him with audacity. "And where she is. I know she can't go to deep emotional places, so I don't expect her to."

Although, it's such a wonderful surprise when she does.

"I can't take away my daughter's first true friend," Prince James unwillingly admits. "But that doesn't mean I like you. I'm going to try and trust you because it seems you understand Emma in a way we don't. As much as that breaks my heart, I think she needs a friend right now. So I'm going to try to trust you for Emma, because she asked me to." His voice breaks a little. "Only for my daughter."

I don't know what to say or how it will change things, but I smile at him as a thank you.

"If my daughter trusts you, Pinocchio, I don't see why I can't. Although," He steps closer to me, enough to threaten me, but not enough to scare Jiminy. "I have a friend that's working on a spell for me for this other nonfriend of mine and if I hear that you've taken advantage of my trust, I will just have to find another solution for this nonfriend and save the spell for you. Understood?"

His threat does scare me, but then Emma's face appears in my mind, and my confidence resurfaces.

"I better learn to be brave and truthful, then." I reply.

"Let's hope you already know how," he says seriously. "Because if you don't, magic could teach you the lesson in a way you don't want it taught. Believe me."

And with one more threatening look, the Prince turns and powerfully exists my Father's property.

I look back at Jiminy's worried face, "Any advice, Dr. Cricket?"

A/N: Promising Emma/August fluffy wonderfulness next chapter to those who tell me they want it! Hopefully readers will cherish it while it last, because it sounds like Prince James' threats are becoming more and more concrete :O!