Chapter four

Henry's eyebrows were practically joined as he continued to look at the page on the bed in front of him, before he let out a frustrated groan and threw his head into his hands.

"Why do I have to write essays anyway?" he asked, which was barely audible through his fingers.

"Because we do, complaining about it won't change that Henry," Emma replied.

Henry's hands fell down and he was about to argue that was stupid, but his words died on his tongue when it occurred to him that he wasn't in a classroom. He was sure that if it had been a teacher who had said that, he would have retorted without thinking and then would have been sent out. That would inevitably lead to his mother being called and then being grounded. Of course, he knew that Cora was more lenient on him than she would have been on Regina or Zelena if they talked back to a teacher, because she understood that it was out of frustration, but that didn't mean that she could leave his actions unpunished. At this point, he was sick of the cycle that he seemed to be going through constantly and he knew that some part of him hoped that Emma helping him would be an immediate fix, but he was quickly realising that he would still have to do all of the work.

"How do I know what to write?" he asked with a loud sigh.

"You need to make sure that you read the question properly first. You can write a great essay but fail if it doesn't answer the question," Emma explained.

Henry felt his stomach jump at the word 'fail' but he looked once again at the words on the top of sheet he had been given to make up for his bad grades so far this year. This would be the first of many and he was surprised that the teacher had even agreed to issue it to him, but the woman had been so shocked when he asked for the syllabus that she obviously decided that it was a good time for a second (or third) chance.

"How are metaphors used in To Kill a Mockingbird?" he read aloud, and looked back up to Emma with a furrowed brow, as if he was hoping that her expression would give him all of the answers to that mess of words.

Emma tilted her head at the boy as she considered the expression on his face, she couldn't tell if it was hope or worry. She gave up on trying to figure it out and picked up a pad of paper and handed it to him, "write down all of your ideas first..."

Henry swallowed hard as he brought his pen to hover over the paper and looked contemptuously at the novel taunting him from the sheets of the bed. His pen stayed completely still for about five minutes, but Emma made no move to say anything and just waited. She knew that he had read the novel more than a few times since his parents had made sure he had all of the help he needed with reading, that really wasn't the issue. She had been slightly surprised when he showed her all of the programs his parents had brought for his computer that essentially read for Henry so that he could follow along on the page at any speed that suited him. Considering all of the books in his room, she could tell that reading definitely wasn't the problem, he clearly enjoyed it once he had a way to make it easier for him. But that meant that she still needed to help find a way to make this part easier for him so that he could eventually try and not see the essay writing part as such a chore.

Eventually, Henry gave up and looked up at his foster sister with pleading eyes and she reached her hand out so that he could hand the paper back to her.

"Have you ever tried mind maps?" she asked as she set to work writing 'metaphors in To Kill a Mockingbird' in the centre of the page.

Henry shook his head with a furrowed brow as he peered over to see what she was writing.

"I use them all the time," Emma's replied, "when there's too much information, you need to decide what to focus on and I think a mind map is a good way to see what your options are. If you write down everything you know, it's easier to see which ones are the best ones to look at."

With that, she handed the paper back over to him.

Henry's pen hovered over to page again as he stared at the words, it did feel a little better seeing that it was no longer blank.

"So...I just..." he started, but trailed off and just gestured towards the page.

"Write down anything that comes to mind," Emma replied, "even if you're not sure about it, just write it down."

Henry shrugged and started scribbling stuff down and it wasn't too long until the page was full of words. He wasn't even aware that he knew that much about the book.

"Now what?" he asked, the frustration in his voice had given way to awe at what he had managed to do.

"You need to pick the ideas you want to write about. You can pick two or three main ones and if any of the other ones are related to the main points you can highlight them as sub-points," she replied and handed him three highlighters.

Henry stuck his tongue out a little as he began doing as he was told and Emma briefly pictured Regina doing the same thing while she concentrated. She quickly looked down at her lap, hoping that Henry wouldn't see the blush that was creeping up her face. There was no logical explanation for it, if he glanced up now and saw it.

A moment later, Henry looked up at his tutor and she handed him another piece of paper, "now write down all of the points you picked, draw a line off the main points to add any of the sub-points that you can see and you'll be able to see exactly what you want to include in the essay."

He once again did as he was told and Emma smiled at the proud grin that the boy was wearing as he gazed down at everything that he had written.

"Okay...so now what?" he asked, his smile fading a little when it occurred to him that he would still needed to write something that could actually be submitted to his teacher.

"Point, evidence, explanation," she replied and when she received a confused look in return, Emma continued, "for each thing you've written down, you have to write a sentence to open your point, then put a quote to support it. Then you have to explain how the quote supports what you said."

Henry continued to frown and Emma offered him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, before she picked up some papers that she had had next to her.

The boy took them, though looking at them only seemed to cause him to frown more.

"I e-mailed the essay to you so you can read along on your computer. If you just read through that a few times, you should be able to see the structure of the essay. Just let me know when you're down and I'll show you how to plan the essay properly before you start writing it..."

Henry nodded and allowed a smile to tug at the corner of his lips, before he said, "you're a really good teacher, you know?"

Emma just shrugged, though the compliment did force her to look down at her lap for a second. She knew that school was the one thing that she excelled at and it also helped that she actually enjoyed it (the eidetic memory didn't hurt either to be fair). It stood to reason that she would be a good teacher, but it felt strangely good to have the confirmation of that aloud. It could only mean that what she was doing was actually helping.

"Okay," he smiled as he stood from the bed, "do you need any more comics?"

Emma looked over to the growing pile on her desk across the room (which Cora had added to her room a few days ago) and she shook her head. Henry hadn't actually been taking back the comics that he borrowed to her so far, so she replied, "I think I'm good for a while…"

The boy smiled at her and grabbed the pieces of paper, and began walking towards the door.

He quickly slipped out of the room but cringed when he heard the next room's door also open at the same time. He automatically brought his mind maps and the highlighted essay to his chest and looked guiltily over to the brunette who had her eyes glued to her phone.

Regina seemed to realise that she wasn't alone in the hallway and her eyes snapped up from the device in her hand to look at her little brother. They stared at each other for a moment before Regina asked, "what are you doing?"

Henry swallowed hard and shook his head, "I was...just…taking some comics to Emma…"

"And she gave you…notes?" the older sibling asked.

"I asked to borrow some paper," Henry shot back before he scurried away, not giving his sister any more chance to question him.

Regina opened her mouth to say something else as she watched him go, but her phone let out a little ding and she just shrugged and looked down at it as she walked towards the stairs.

She'd long since accepted that her little brother was weird so it didn't really bare any more thought.

S

August leaned against the door frame and sighed deeply as he stared at the blonde teen lay in the bed while he adjusted the messenger bag strung over his shoulder to a more comfortable position.

His honeymoon had been the most peaceful three weeks of his life and he had loved every moment of it, but now he couldn't help but wish that he hadn't gone. If the agency wasn't so understaffed, he wouldn't have had to worry about the minors in his care, but the checks that were supposed to be made weren't. He knew for certain that if he hadn't taken two months off work for all that came with getting married, then this would have never happened. He completely understood why his fiancé had suggested it since he had so many vacation days that he hadn't taken, but he was now being rather rudely reminded why he never took off more than a single week at a time and even that was quite the stretch.

He had to return to find out that the neighbours of Emma Swan's foster parents had called the police and an ambulance when they'd finally gotten proof of their suspicions.

He couldn't imagine what it would have been like if he'd have come back and visited the week after as his schedule had dictated and no one had called for help. Emma's state was already difficult to take in and he was trying not to think about whether he would have been able to physically stomach if things had been worse.

"August?"

The man blinked out of his thoughts and realised that Emma must have woken up. He quickly pushed himself off the doorframe and walked over to the bed.

"Hey," he said, trying not to allow his voice to shake at the bruising on her face, her broken nose caused a deep shade of purple to ring her unfocused eyes. He couldn't even imagine the intensity of the pain killers that she must have been on.

Emma's right hand immediately went to the cast on her left so that she could figure out what the new weight on her arm was. For a moment, she tried to remember the last thing that had happened to her, but her mind was somewhat blank.

"Where am I?" she asked hazily.

Her social worker smiled sadly at her and replied, "the hospital. You've been unconscious for about a week, you had to have a couple of surgeries…"

The girl nodded slowly, completely understanding exactly why she was here. Everything came back to her and she winced, which caused pain to ripple through her entire body despite pain killers pumping through her veins.

"What happened to the Chases?"

August furrowed his brow for a moment, wondering just why she would be worried about the people who had hurt her so much, but then the reason occurred to him and he allowed himself to smile slightly at how much of a good person Emma still managed to be. Even after this.

"Mr and Mrs Chase are currently in custody and will be going away for a very long time. Victoria and Nathan are being looked after by Mrs Chase's sister and from what I've heard, she would be more than willing to adopt both of them…"

Emma blew out a rather pained breath as she managed to relax slightly. As much pain as she was in, it helped slightly that two more children were not sent into the foster system.

"So…when do I have to go to another home?" the blonde asked somewhat timidly.

The man's sad smile remained and reached up to push aside a golden lock of hair that he knew must have been irritating.

"Nowhere just yet…I'll start looking for a placement soon, but the doctor said that it would be quite some time before you can be discharged."

Emma frowned again and she actually took a moment to look around her surroundings more critically, "am I…in a private room?"

August nodded slowly, "as I said, you're going to be here for quite some time…what happened was on the news so Social Services wanted to make sure that your recovery was fully funded in the interest of appeasing the media…"

"It was on the news?" the blonde sighed, she was already so sick of being pitied by people when they found out that she was in the foster system, but this would only serve to make it worse.

"Sorry, Em," August replied with a sigh, "after that case a few months ago with the baby, the media were more than willing to shed their light on this."

Emma nodded and looked down at her lap. She was somewhat relieved that she would be able to spend the next few months in this room. No new family. No new school. It would be actually refreshing, but she knew eventually that she would have to return to real life and she then people would be able to just Google her to find out every horrible thing about her life.

"So what am I supposed to do here?"

August tilted his head and replied, "you need to focus on getting better."

"But…"

The man quickly held up his hand to cut off her worry before he appeased her, "your GPA will be fine, Swan, the school has loaned you a laptop that you can use to finish this semester's assignments."

With that, he brought the bag off his shoulder and placed it on the bedside table.

"You just need to ask one of the nurses for the Wi-Fi password."

Emma nodded in understanding and silence passed between them before August took a deep breath and began, "Emma I'm so…"

Before he could finish, Emma shook her head and said, "it's okay August, I'm fine."

August thought to argue, but he knew that there was nothing he could do to convince her that she didn't have to pretend to be fine. After all, this shouldn't be normal anyone.

"I'll visit as often as possible," he assured, "and if you need anything, call me, morning or night, you understand?"

Emma smiled at him and nodded, "thanks August."