Chapter 38 –
Emma is going to be a great big sister and an even better helper for her mom to prepare for the baby! And soon they will all have the same last name! They are finally becoming a real family!
Within two weeks of turning in the final paperwork Sharon called with an official court date so that Charming and Snow could officially adopt Emma! Emma was actually looking forward to becoming Emma Noland instead of Emma Swan because it made her feel closer to her parents and her soon to be brother or sister.
Emma started to enjoy helping Snow get ready for the new baby. They would pick up a few things here or there on their shopping trips and she helped David put together the ever-confusing baby crib.
Snow was finally starting to show being at 10 weeks or so which made it fun to be able to tell the rest of the town the exciting news.
Emma was finally making her way to the end of her "Grounded to mom and dad" sentence but it hadn't been smooth sailing exactly and Emma had managed to get another week of punishment tacked on.
During lunch on a Friday Emma and Neal found an unmanned door and made a run for it hoping to be back by their next class knowing that the likelihood was pretty much zero but Emma convinced Neal to go with her to see if her parents had really put up a boundary spell or if they were using it as a scare tactic. To Emma's slight shock and awe it was definitely real and Emma was effectively wrapped up in tree branches unable to free herself.
Neal ended up having to go into town and tell David what the pair had done so that he could let Emma free of the branches.
David was not surprised that Emma had eventually tried to test her boundary but he figured it would be in the middle of the night not in the middle of the school day. He brought her back with him to the station and made her finish her homework at the empty desk while he did paperwork. Thankfully she had decided to cause trouble on a slow day.
OUAT
Today was the day, Charming and Snow had hardly been able to sleep they were so excited. Today was the day that Emma Swan became Emma Noland and all would be right with the world!
They went into Emma's room with breakfast to wake her up. Emma was not a morning person so the breakfast was kind of a peace offering.
"Good morning Emma!" Snow said opening the door to find a sleeping Emma sprawled about the bed.
David walked over and picked her up in his arms and set her up in the bed and sat next to her "Hey Em, we brought you breakfast."
Emma flopped over onto David obviously awake but not willing to act as such.
"Come on Emma, we have our court date today!" Snow said moving Emma's hair out of her face.
Emma responded with a groan and grabbed the muffin off the tray and took a bite while still laying on David's shoulder. After she had finished off the muffin she finally used real words. "Can I just stay here?"
"Emma you have to be there in order to be adopted" David said slightly taken a back by Emma's resistance
"And it's the day we become a family and it just wouldn't be the same without you" Snow added
"Well can we do it later? I'm so tired"
"Em why are you tired? You went to bed at nine" David said confused
"It took me a long time to get to sleep"
"When I checked on you at 9:30 you were out honey" Snow said
"Well it wasn't restful sleep" Emma said
"Emma" David said pulling away causing Emma to have to sit up. He then made eye contact with her
"What?" Emma said pulling the tray closer. "Can't a girl just be tired?" and shoved a huge bite of pancakes into her mouth.
"I don't you did something but I'm going to let you slide till tonight but this talk is not over" David said staring Emma down so she knew he was serious.
"I have nothing to tell you" Emma said shoving another huge bite into her mouth.
"Sure you don't" David said taking a strawberry off her plate.
"Hey!" Emma said leaning forward to guard her food
"Alright Emma finish up your breakfast and get dressed in something nice" Snow said with a smile as she and charming exited the loft.
Once they were out of ear shot in the kitchen Charming finally let out the laugh that he has been containing.
"Oh my word, I have never seen her look so guilty!"
"It was funny, especially when she started stuffing her face!" Snow added
"I really hate that we're going to have to extend her punishment because you know she snuck out last night and whatever you saw was blankets and pillows. I just hope she didn't do anything too stupid" David said taking a bite of his own pancakes
"Oh I know, at least we know she stayed in town this time" Snow added.
"That's true. Today is going to be a good day"
Charming kissed the top of Snow's head before heading off to take a shower.
OUAT
The 'Trail' as it were was quick and Emma was officially declared adopted by Snow and Charming and became Emma Noland. Their little family was finally together and nothing could change that now.
They celebrated with a potluck at Grannies which of course included Hot Chocolate with Cinnamon. Emma was shocked at the overwhelming love and support they had from everyone in Storybrook. Although she knew everyone adored her parents, she was shocked at the number of people that came up to her and said how excited they were that she wasn't going to have to leave. It made her feel like she finally had a real home.
Eventually all the adults had broken off into their groups and were talking while Emma, Neal, Killian, and August all found a booth and began a game of Dutch Blitz. Emma noticed that her dad kept looking back at them every few minutes, he was always overprotective when it came to boys. Emma found some humor in it but it was mostly annoying so she tried to ignore it so she could focus on the task at hand, whipping these boys butts at her favorite game.
OUAT
Emma had won two games and then everyone started to leave and before long it was just her and August in the booth while her parents said their final farewells to the rest of their guests.
"So it's official, no more foster home, no more case workers, how does it feel?" August asked
"It feels…new. I mean, I'm excited to finally have my parents and a family but it's a bit weird to think that this is the last home I'll ever have" Emma replied taking her hot chocolate into her hands.
"You'll get used to it, it's actually kind of nice to know you have a roof over your head that isn't going anywhere"
"That is true. But the stranger thing is going to be when the baby comes. I know my parents love me but they didn't get to raise me from a baby and now this new kid…well they'll have all they wanted"
"The nice thing will be though you'll be able to sneak out easier" August said with a sly grin
"That my friend I am looking forward to!" Emma replied
Just then David walked up eyeing the young man on the other side of the booth. "What are you looking forward to Em?"
"Being a big sister of course!" Emma said looking at August with a relieved look
"Well it's time for us to head out" David said putting his hand on Emma's shoulder to guide her out of the booth. It was no secret how he felt about August after he had snuck into Emma's room the night that the curse was broken and he hadn't forgotten in the slightest.
"See you later Emma" August said. "I should head home"
"Yes you should, I'll call you're dad to make sure you made it safe August" David said staring the young man down.
"Thank you Mr. Noland but that won't be necessary"
"Oh I think it is, run along home now"
"Goodnight" August said a bit annoyed at David for making him feel like a kid.
"Goodnight August, let's go Emma" David said as he guided her over to where Snow was gathering her things.
OUAT
They walked in the door and Emma was hoping they had forgotten about this morning's little banter over breakfast and she would be able to slip off to bed but David had not forgotten.
Emma started to walk up the stairs before David called after her "Emma go ahead and change and put your things away and come back down, we need to talk"
Emma knew she was trapped, but she wasn't going to go down without a fight. She took a bit longer then she knew she should have to get changed into some comfy clothes and put her things away but she needed the time to come up with a good excuse for why she was tired.
"Emma what's taking you so long honey?" Snow called up the stairs breaking Emma's concentration
"I'll be right there." She replied before bolting down the stairs. She didn't want to give her parents any other reason to question her.
She walked down to see her parents sitting at the table waiting for her. She felt her stomach fly into her throat but she did her best to keep her cool as she sat down at the table.
"Emma, it's time to talk about this morning," David said
"I figured, but I already told you, I was just tired and I didn't sleep well," Emma said as calmly as she could manage.
"Did you have a nightmare that woke you up?" Snow asked deeply wanting to be wrong about her daughter sneaking out
"No" Emma said looking down at the floor before taking a deep breath and hoping she could pull this out.
"I was up late watching Netflix" she blurted out without making eye contact. "I heard you coming and I paused the video and rolled over so it looked like I was sleeping but I really wanted to finish my movie and I stayed up later than I should have"
David and Snow looked at each other. They figured it was a plausible option and it would make sense why Snow hadn't thought to go into Emma's room further to check on her but David still felt like everything wasn't quite adding up.
"Emma, why didn't you just tell us about it?" David asked feeling like that would have come up this morning.
"I knew you guys would be mad if you found out that I was staying up late to watch a movie when we had the court date today" Emma lied again not making eye contact.
David was calling it, this was bull. Emma would have told them she stayed up too late watching a movie last night if that was all it was, he had to go with his gut, she had snuck out.
"Emma, I'm going to give you one last chance to come clean about what you really did last night because I'm not buying that you were up late watching Netflix on your phone" He said staring her down.
Emma began to sweat, she really thought she would be able to get away with this and that they would be happy with the Netflix excuse but now she had to think and fast. What else could she say that her parents might buy that didn't give away she had snuck out?
"Emma, I'm waiting" David said never taking his eyes off his daughter
"What do you want me to say?" Emma replied "I told you I was watching Netflix"
She thought she would give it a final try, anything that wouldn't land her with another week added to her punishment.
"Emma I know you snuck out last night" David finally blurted out, he was getting tired of waiting for Emma to confess.
"I what?" Emma played dumb
"Emma, you were exhausted this morning because you snuck out right?" Snow said. She too was getting a bit fed up with Emma's antics.
"I…" Emma didn't know what to say. How in the world did her parents know she had suck out? They hadn't even woken up, she knows, she checked.
"Emma, if anything but the truth comes out of your mouth we're tacking on another month to your punishment. I'm going to ask you one more time, What were you really doing last night?"
Emma was shocked. She thought she was so clever but apparently not clever enough.
"Fine, I snuck out and me and the guys watched a movie in Killian's room at Grannies. It went a little later then I thought it would"
Emma couldn't believe she had just told her parents that. She realized as the words passed her lips this was not going to end well.
David's face turned as red as a beat. He couldn't imagine where Emma got the idea that it would be okay to go off and be in a room alone with three boys without him knowing about it.
"Dad please don't be upset. I know how you feel about this but they are my friends, nothing happened, we watched the movie and we all went home." Emma said trying to defuse her father's anger.
"Emma Ruth, what were you thinking?" Snow finally found her words
"I was thinking I missed my friends and I wanted to get away from you two. Don't get me wrong I love you guys but I haven't been away from either of you in three weeks and I had to get out!" Emma said knowing she was probably only digging a deeper hole for herself.
"Emma, I want you to go up to your room and you're mom and I will let you know what you're punishment is" David said without looking at his daughter
OUAT
"I'm going to kill them" David said as soon as Emma was out of ear shot. "I told August that I didn't like him and I can't figure out how she keeps wrangling Neal into her crazy idea and I just don't like Killian period."
"David you need to calm down honey, I'm just as upset as you are but we have to keep a clear head if we're going to deal with this properly." Snow said reaching over and putting her hand on Charming's arm.
"Snow what are we going to do? We have grounded her to only being able to be with us, we put up the boundaries spell. I mean the only other thing we haven't tried is chaining her to one of us so that we always know where she is. I'm at a loss!" Charming said frustrated.
"I know. She is stubborn and sneaky and disobedient but she has a heart of gold. We just need to figure out how to communicate in a way that she can understand and can break through that ever loving thick head of hers."
"You're right. But I'm just scared that we're going to lose her again." David admitted to his wife.
"I feel the same way. We will keep her safe, even if it means going to extreme measures, we will do it" Snow reassured her husband.
That was something Snow loved about her and Charming's relationship, whenever one of them was down the other was always there to help pick them up. They always saved each other, always. This time would be no different, they would save their daughter from any danger that may threaten her, no questions asked, she just needed Charming to remember that now.