Chapter 52

What kind of information is David going to find on Lily? On Emma? With all this information into Emma's past, how will Emma react?

Emma crutched into school annoyed that both of her parents would not let the whole Lily situation go. She understood they were worried but she could handle this on her own without her parents getting involved.

She knew that they wouldn't stop pushing until they got an answer that would appease their curiosity so Emma would have to come up with something good before she got picked up.

She continued to crutch toward her locker when low and behold came Lily.

"What do you want?" Emma said in an annoyed tone as she put in her locker combination

"Good to see you too Emma" Lily said ignoring her friends obvious distain for her presence

"Lily I'm really not in the mood right now" Emma said turning to face her

"Well someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. What's the matter with you?"

"You are what's the matter with me! My parents keep asking what's wrong between the two of us because they saw us fighting last night and now their asking about our past together and frankly I don't want to go back there!" Emma blurted out feeling relieved to finally be getting it off of her chest

"Why are you so against telling them we knew each other and may have gotten into a bit of trouble? It's not like we did anything that bad!"

"You may think so. Your dad got you out of any punishment for braking into that apartment. I got two weeks in juve for that!" Emma had never told anyone about her two weeks in the juvenile detention center that resulted from her and Lily's little adventure running from her foster home.

"Emma…I didn't know…." Lily said feeling genuinely bad that Emma had gotten in trouble for that

"Exactly! After that I didn't hear from you until you showed up here! You got me in trouble and left me to take the blame!"

"Emma…My parents wouldn't let me see you. I tried, believe me"

"How can I believe you?!" Emma cut her off "You had everything I wanted, a family that adopted you and loved you and a home yet you didn't care!"

"Emma I told you, my parents were not all they were cracked up to be. They didn't really love me like you think"

"Well that loved you enough to adopt you didn't they!?" Emma shouted

"Everything okay here?" Neal said walking up on the situation

"Everything is fine!" Emma said slamming her locker "Let's go to class" and with that Neal walked Emma to her class leaving Lily standing at the lockers

OUAT

"Hey Gram" Charming said walking into the station

"Hey David. How are you?"

"Good. Hey I need you to do me a favor. I need you to pull Emma's records from her time in the foster care system and see if there was ever a time where she filed for emancipation"

"Okay…everything okay?" Gram asked a little suspicious about David wanting all of these records after Emma living with him for over a year now.

"Emma has a friend from her past in town named Lily and they told us that they had both applied for Emancipation before Emma came to live with me and Lily got it but Emma didn't. The story just doesn't seem to add up"

"Fair enough. I'll look into what I can find"

"Thanks Gram. I'm going to go make the rounds and I'll be back."

"Sounds good" Gram replied and with that David was out the door to make his rounds.

OUAT

"Thanks for helping me get to class" Emma said to Neal in a bit of a shy voice.

"Not a problem. You wanna talk about what was goin' on back there at the lockers?" Neal said seeing that it was still bothering Emma

"Maybe later. Well anyway…this is my stop…see you at lunch" Emma said crutching into the classroom.

"Yea, see you then" Neal said heading to his own class. As he turned the corner he ran into Lily. "Oh hey. You okay?"

Lily looked like a dear in the headlights looking at Neal. She wasn't expecting to see anyone. "I'm fine. Tell Emma I'm sorry and I'm out of her life" and began to walk away

"Whoa…what are you talking about?" Neal said in complete confusion

"I mean I'm going back to Boston. I thought it would be a good idea to come here but obviously it wasn't so I'm leaving"

"Lily!" Neal yelled down the hall but Lily just kept walking and exited out the door to the court yard.

Neal didn't know what to do. He figured he would just talk to Emma about it at lunch.

OUAT

Charming came back to the station about an hour after he left to make the rounds

"Hey Charming I found Emma's files but there is no mention here of her ever applying for emancipation. But when you mentioned her friend Lily I was able to do some more digging and it looks like Lily was adopted as a baby and has been in nothing but trouble since"

"What kind of trouble?"

"Petty theft, ran away from home more than a dozen times, and there is currently an APB out for her in Boston and it says she's been missing for three weeks"

"When was she enrolled at the high school?"

Gram typed a few things on the computer "Three weeks ago"

"So she's a runaway…then how could Emma have known her?"

"Well that's something else that I found. Emma spent two weeks in juvenile detention after she and Lily were caught trespassing. Lily's dad got her out of it but because Emma was in foster care she had no one to go to bat for her so she was still punished"

"Poor Emma…She never told us that…but that would make sense if Lily coming here was the first time Emma had seen her since then why they were arguing at the house last night"

"Yea. But David more importantly here at the moment we have to take her into custody and get the Boston police to come pick her up"

"You're right. I'll go over to the school and pick her up. Can you get in contact with Boston?"

"Yea, sure. But we have to figure out away to get her in contact with the Boston police because we can't cross the town line…"

"I hadn't thought about that. But Regina can! So call Regina and see if she would be willing to escort Lily to Boston and if she agrees then get in contact with Boston police. If she doesn't, then just wait till I get back"

Charming grabbed his jacket and headed out to bring Lily to the station.

As he was driving to the school he noticed a small framed girl walking down the street with a hoodie over her head. He knew that all the kids were supposed to be in school so he pulled over and flashed his sirens but the girl took off. Charming drove after her and was easily able to cut her off when she went to run into the street. She stopped in front of the cruiser and looked up to reveal that she was Lily.

"Lily? What are you doing out here?" David said getting out of the car

"Oh hi Mr. Nolan. I just wasn't feeling well so I'm going back to my room at Grannies rest" Lily said about to walk away when Charming stepped in front of her

"So if you didn't feel good why did you run?" David said crossing his arms

"Sorry…old habits die hard I guess. When you are in the foster care system sirens never mean anything good" Lily said not making eye contact

"Lily I know what's really going on here. You ran away from your parents in Boston. You're going to have to come with me" David said while taking a hold of Lily's arm lightly and guiding her to the back of the squad car.

As they drove to the station David decided to see if Lily would tell David why the two girls were arguing at the house last night.

"Lily. I know that things are tense between you and Emma. If you wanna talk about it…"

"Mr Nolan I don't think Emma would like that very much. If it's okay with you, I think you should talk to her"

"I can respect that. Thank you Lily. Now I want to let you know we are contacting the Boston police because your parents have been looking for you"

"Mr Nolan please don't send me back! I know I lied about being in foster care buy my adoptive parents really aren't good people. That's why I ran away from home"

"Lily I will pass that information along to the Boston police but it's my job to let them know that you are okay and that you are safe."

"Mr Nolan, Please!"

"Lily what is so horrible about your parents?"

"They don't care about me like you care about Emma. They only want me around because it makes them look good that they adopted a little girl."

"Lily I can tell you that your parents care more about you than that even though it may not seem like it. I'm sure that they love you. The teen years are hard. Trust me. Well we're here. Let's get inside" David said getting out of the car to let Lily out.

Lily was devastated that she was going to be sent home to her parents.