T/W for physical abuse and homophobia
Chapter seven
Regina looks a second to inspect the decals plastered on the door in front of her.
Judging by the most prominent characters displayed, she had no doubt that she had chosen the best possible comic book to get the information that she needed.
There was still a chance that he would just tell her that she needed to figure it all out for herself and, to be fair, he would be perfectly justified in saying so. She knew that she could be one of the most charismatic people in the small town, so she should be able to find a way to talk to a girl living in her house without any help from her little brother.
Of course, this little crush that had yet to go away wasn't helping matters, in fact, it was just making her more frustrated than anything.
There was only one person in town who knew that she wasn't as straight as many would believe her to be and he was currently on vacation with his family. She'd had the urge to call him up many times since Emma had arrived, but each time she decided that it would be best to just wait until he got home in a couple of days.
She gripped the package in her left hand and steeled her nerves as she raised her right closed fist to knock against Captain America's shield. She then took a step back and waited as patiently as she possibly could.
After a couple seconds passed, she resisted the urge to sigh deeply as she moved forward to knock once more, but her movement was interrupted by the door being yanked open without any warning.
The boy raised his eyebrow at his shocked sister and he tilted his head as he asked, "did you not expect me to open the door?"
Regina stood in silence for a couple seconds, before her sense caught up with her and she shook her head before she replied, "I need to ask you something…"
Henry nodded, though the scepticism was evident upon his face. He and Regina used to spend a lot of time together, especially when she used to read comic books to him, before she suddenly decided that they didn't interest her anymore and she gave everything that she had to him. Recently, however, the only reason that the cheerleader would have knocked on his door would be that one of their parents had sent her to go and get him.
He stepped aside and gestured for her to enter his room.
Regina took the invitation and crossed the threshold and she frowned for a second as she looked around. She had expected the space to be a complete mess, but he had obviously cleaned it since the last time that she was in here a couple years ago.
"Are you okay?" he asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her wellbeing.
Regina bit the inside of her cheek. She would never normally have this kind of problem talking to her little brother, but she knew exactly why she couldn't just come out and ask him what she wanted to know. The subject of her inquiry was not something that she was about to think about without either becoming closed off or blushing deeply.
"I'm fine," she replied too quickly to be considered normal, which just caused her brother to look even more sceptical than he had a moment before. Regina rolled her eyes at him and decided that she just wanted to get this over and done with and finally handed over the package that Henry had been eyeing suspiciously since he had opened the door, "this is for you."
Henry's frown only deepened. He was fairly sure that Regina had never given him a gift for the sake of it and the fact that she was acting so strange obviously meant that this wasn't just a gift, there was something behind it and he had no doubt that he would be finding out fairly soon.
It was for this reason that he just opened it without much hesitation and his eyes widened as he pulled the book out of its protective bubble-wrap. It was the exact issue of Spider-Man he was hoping to get for his birthday since there was no way that he would be able to save enough money for it before then. He ran his fingers over the red on the cover before he looked from it to Regina and then back down to it.
Finally, the initial shock of the fact that his sister had given him an unexpected gift wore off and he remembered that she said she needed something from him.
"So you're bribing me with a comic book because…?" he asked.
"I just wanted to ask you some questions…about…"
"About Emma?" he sighed and walked over to his bed to place the comic book down as if it was the most precious thing he had ever held.
He honestly would have told her anything she wanted to know without the need for bribes but he would certainly not say no to accepting what was presented to him. He sat down onto the bed and looked over to her with a quirked eyebrow.
Regina looked as though she was about to deny his words, but it quickly occurred to her that she would never get the information she wanted if he was always on the defensive and so she allowed her shoulders to sag slightly in defeat. A moment later, she came over to sit next to him, with the comic book between them and she nodded.
"She'll have her cast off soon and mom will make her go to school…how am I supposed to make her comfortable if I can't even talk to her?"
Henry tilted his head, he had no idea that she was capable of thinking about the comfort of other people, especially after she joined the cheerleading team and became a walking cliche.
"Have you tried to talk to her?" he asked, "she won't bite, you know?"
He chose not to mention the fact that the blonde did seem to act strange sometimes, almost as if she were withdrawn from reality and it only seemed to happen when there was a break in their tutoring sessions. He was aware that there was no chance that he would ever be able to understand what happened to her, so it was for this reason that he had long since decided to never try and bring up the painful subject. It didn't help that in those moments when she was withdrawn, he was sure that there was something else on her mind, like she was trying to figure out some kind of puzzle at all times.
Regina blew out a breath as she thought back to their last few interactions. The only time they had something resembling a real conversation was the first day they had met and that didn't last particularly long. She really wished that she had prolonged the conversation rather than trying to get out of the room as quickly as humanly possible.
"She always looks like she wants to run away whenever I talk to her," she admitted and just about stopped herself from placing her head in her hands, though she did end up shooting her brother a pleading look. She did hope that he wouldn't question why she was so desperate past the desire to do what their mother wanted, as far as he knew, it had to be the only reason she was trying to help their new foster sister, at least for the time being, "mom will kill me if she thinks that I haven't made Emma comfortable on her first day at school…so I thought if I brought you the comic book…you could give me some advice and…not tell mom that I came to you?"
Henry looked at her doubtfully.
He had a feeling that she hadn't even thought about how their mother would react until she needed an excuse for asking for help. It was actually kind of funny that she would be so nervous about talking to Emma considering that there was probably not a single other person in the world that she wouldn't be able to talk to if she wanted to. Of course, he wasn't quite sure yet why Emma was the exception to that rule, as far as he was concerned, Regina was just the cheerleader dating the footballer.
"Do you have any advice or not?" she asked with a groan when she decided that the boy was taking too long to reply.
"She's really easy to talk to…I don't think that there's anything I could tell you," he replied, "all I know is that she loves school and she's a huge Marvel fan…maybe you could try a Marvel Vs DC debate?"
Regina let out a sigh.
She was pretty sure that she could was more than capable of carrying that debate for longer that all of their conversations combined, but that didn't really feel like a sustainable plan in the long-term.
"Is that what you two do? Just spend all of your time talking about comic books?" she asked, "you do spend a lot of time in her room…"
Henry bit the inside of his cheek.
He was still very reluctant to tell anyone about it since he had yet to receive any real proof that the tutoring sessions were working, but he figured that telling his sister would make it easier for her to see Emma as a normal person.
"If I tell you, you can't tell anyone else," he said slowly.
Regina sat up a little straighter and quirked an eyebrow as her mind went through what it could possibly be, but none of the options seemed plausible, so she just nodded to tell him that she wouldn't tell anyone.
Henry took in a deep breath and asked, "did you know that she has an eidetic memory?"
Regina drew her eyebrows together.
Thar definitely felt like something that she should have known about the girl living in her house. She obviously knew that the girl was smart, but she had no idea that she was actually a genius, which somehow made it much more terrifying to try and talk to her. How was she supposed to make someone so smart feel comfortable at a school that was most likely way below her level? Emma was clearly far happier studying at home than she could ever be at Storybrooke High School. However, this had nothing to do with what Henry was about to tell her, so she decided that she would dwell on this little fact later.
"Okay…so what?"
"A couple of days after she first got here, I asked her if she would tutor me in exchange for comic books..." he explained
Regina's eyes widened. She didn't think that there was anything that could make this girl anymore amazing, but somehow she had managed it.
"So…why can't I tell anyone?" she asked.
"Well…because it might not work and I don't want to disappoint everyone and make Emma look bad…and I don't want mom and dad to think I'm just using her," he admitted.
"They wouldn't think that, you're already their favourite since you're the only one who actually spends time with her," Regina assured him.
Henry nodded in agreement, though he didn't look completely convinced. He was still waiting for results from his work and he was so worried that he would fail and disappoint Emma, even if a part of him knew that there was no way that she could actually be disappointed in him. She would probably just find another way to help him.
"I guess so," he mumbled, though he was imagining what it would feel like if his mother thought he would get a better grade only for him to fail again. She would definitely try to hide her disappointment, but it was only natural at this point.
The pair sat in silence for a few more moments until Regina decided that she wasn't going to get the information that she wanted from Henry, mostly because she had no idea what kind of information she actually wanted.
This had clearly been a stalling tactic because she was desperate to postpone talking to her crush and she couldn't really figure out how to do so without mentioning that she was in fact her crush.
There was only one person who she could mention that to so she resolved to just wait until he returned so that she could have a frank conversation about all of this.
It was for this reason that she just rose from the bed and muttered something like 'enjoy the comic book, Henry' before she made her way out of the room.
Henry watched her go with his eyebrows drawn together as he tried to figure out exactly why it was that she was acting so strange, but he quickly decided that it was out of his age range and he grabbed the issue of Spider-Man with gusto and fell back against his bed with a smile before he started flipping through the pages.
S
Emma blew out a breath and inspected the bruise around her wrist and tried to hold back tears.
She couldn't believe that they had cared enough to find out more about her. In the last few foster homes, the parents had just allowed her to get on with her life as long as she didn't cause any problems and then they would decide that they could no longer handle having a foster kid and she would be moved on. She had found that perfectly fine and she never once complained to August about anything during those two years, he even managed to let her stay in the same state so that moving was never much of a problem.
Now she was in a home where she had a lot to complain about and August was still on vacation. The social worker covering her case probably didn't even have time to read her file past her name and she had no idea whether 'Alex Thompson' was even a man or a woman, which made her pretty sure that she was on her own.
"Are you okay, Emma?" a timid-voice asked from by the door.
Emma's eyes shot up and she quickly pulled her sleeve down to cover the offending injury and tried to smile at the six-year-old girl, who looked very confused. There was no way that she would understand what had happened to her, but Emma cringed at the thought that the Chases's could do something similar to their own children. She could report this right now and maybe protect them, but she would be rolling the dice as to which social worker they would be assigned to. They could get a lazy piece of shit, like the one she'd had before August, which would mean that their life would be ruined forever and it would be all her fault.
As far as she could tell, their parents had never laid a hand on either of them, but they weren't old enough to be 'guilty' of what she had supposedly brought into their home so only time would tell if they would be completely safe in the care of their parents.
The blonde sniffed as she tried to force the tears away from her eyes, but she wasn't sure that she had succeeded.
"I'm okay, Victoria," she replied with a forced smile, trying to banish the memory of what had happened to her just before Victoria and Nathan had returned home.
The girl nodded, though she looked unconvinced, her innocent mind was completely incapable of concocting what could have caused her such upset. Victoria timidly walked over to the bed, ready to assume the position she always did when Emma read her a bed time story, but she stopped at the sound of rushed footsteps in the corridor.
"Tori, why don't you go downstairs and help your mom set the table," Mr Chase said softly from the doorway.
Emma's throat instantly constricted at the sight of the man and at the thought that he no longer wanted his children to even be near her. She was in one of the rare foster homes where the foster siblings didn't resent the fact that she was there and now she was no longer even allowed near them.
This seemed to confuse Victoria more than anything, she had never before been asked to help her mother set the table and she didn't quite understand the anger that played on her father's expression when he looked over at Emma. She couldn't help but wonder what had happened since she and her brother had left for their swimming class. Nonetheless, she still did exactly what her father told her without looking back at Emma.
Once the girl was gone, Mr Chase's expression hardened and he looked over to the blonde.
"Get off the bed," he said lowly.
Emma opened her mouth to protest, but she felt a twinge of pain in her wrist which caused her to jump up from the duvet without even making a sound.
"You can't sleep in the same room as Victoria anymore," he announced.
Emma bit the inside of her cheek, once again trying to hold back tears. This was not the time to bring up the fact that they were required by the state to give her somewhere to sleep, but the thought of some sleepless nights made her selfishly wish that August hadn't gotten married.
"You can sleep on the couch for now," he said as he grabbed her duffel bag and began to throw her stuff inside.
Emma clenched her jaw and mumbled, "aren't you afraid the gay will get all over the couch cushions?"
Mr Chase spun around and grabbed her by the throat and pushed her against the wall, "what did you say?" he growled, his eyes filled with rage.
The teen's mouth went dry. She wasn't really sure why she had allowed those words to slip out of her mouth, she usually confined those kinds of words to her thoughts, "n-nothing…I didn't say anything."
He tightened her grip and she started desperately trying to take deep breaths, though this only served to make it more difficult.
"So you're a dyke and a liar," he sneered.
"P-please, I'm sorry," she cried.
"Daddy," came from just outside the door and Mr Chase instantly released his grip, giving her a look that said if she said anything matters would become ten times worse. It was for this reason that Emma tried to look like nothing had happened, it was difficult considering the fact she had tears staining her cheeks and she had no doubt that there was a red mark developing around her neck.
"Mommy asked me to come and get you for dinner," said a four-year-boy hugging a teddy bear with a grin. The little boy was completely oblivious to the fact that anything was going on, though he did frown at the duffel bag on the bed.
"Okay, Nathan," Mr Chase smiled, as if he wasn't just choking Emma, "I'll be right down."
Nathan nodded in return and turned on his heels to return to his mother and sister.
Mr Chase walked forward to the threshold and looked over his shoulder to see that the blonde made no attempt to follow him and he grinned.
"Looks like someone is finally learning," he sneered, "go to my study while we eat."
s
"Have you talked to anyone in the Mills family about what happened?" Archie asked.
Emma looked away from the clock, as though she was surprised to actually hear a sound during her therapy session. In her ten days in Storybrooke, she'd had two sessions, which had been recommended by the hospital as a condition of her discharge. When she had left (since the doctor had said there was nothing physically wrong with her other than her arm) the doctor had been adamant that she would need to continue her therapy, especially since she hadn't really made the most of it during her stay in the hospital. She hadn't said a single word to the therapist who came to her room every week so she was pretty sure that the doctor had no idea what her voice actually sounded like.
She had hoped that there was a chance that August wouldn't have told Cora about the condition, but it obviously been in the file sent over to the Mills family and the mayor must have booked all of the appointments at the same time that she had arranged for her to meet Dr Whale.
Archie seemed nice enough, but that didn't change the fact that she had no intention of talking and she had planned to just stay silent until he would eventually tell Cora that it was a waste of time. However, being asked a direct question threw her plan off since she knew that it all become all the more awkward if she pretended that she hadn't heard him as she could back when she was hopped up on a lot of pain medication.
"I...it hasn't come up," she replied, refusing to make eye contact, "they already know anyway."
Archie nodded in understanding, "Cora and Henry are certainly aware...but what makes you so sure that their children know?"
Emma frowned, she wasn't quite sure why this was worth breaking the nice silence for, but she could hardly stop answering his questions now. After a moment of consideration, she just shrugged and said, "it's online, they've probably known since they found out my name."
"Are you sure about that?"
The blonde stopped herself from sighing, she had always been sceptical of therapy, since she had learnt long ago that it was easier just to keep feelings in rather than air them out. Plus, she wasn't really a fan of the constant questioning, especially when it seemed that there was never a correct answer.
"I don't know...I guess I can't be sure..." she replied. Now that she thought about it, she would have thought that there would be some kind of turning point when they had found out. Like when they read the gritty details of how Mr and Mrs Chase had treated her, there would either be an extra layer of sympathy towards her or some contempt depending on whether or not they agreed what Mr Chase would blame as the course of all of her pain.
"Even if they have searched you, do you really think that they truly understand what happened to you? Does the written report really represent what you went through?"
Emma swallowed hard. She could feel tears springing to the corner of her eyes and she found it somehow overwhelming. She had never intended to cry while she was in this town since she had been determined to just repress and get on with her life. What happened had happened and she didn't really think that there was any reason to dwell on the fact. Now she was sitting in this mandatory therapy session feeling as though she was about to start balling her eyes out just because he had forced her to think back to what happened.
"I...it doesn't really matter," she mumbled, bringing her hand over to start playing with her cast, as Archie had noticed she tended to do when she was probably thinking about what happened. He knew that she didn't want to think about her time with the Chase family, but he also knew that whatever plan of repression she had come up with would never work in the long term. In fact, he imagined that she'd had at least one or two flashbacks a day whenever she wasn't busying her mind with something else. As much as an eidetic memory made her a genius, it would also make it impossible to forget what had happened to her. If she could indeed remember everything in detail, as he expected that she could, she was far more in need of help than she would ever admit.
"What makes you think that it doesn't matter?" he shot back, hoping that the sympathy didn't show in his voice. Ordinarily he would try the sympathetic angle since he wanted his patients to know that he genuinely cared about them, but he didn't feel as though it would work in this case. It was rather obvious that the girl was not particularly in touch with her emotions. He was more than aware that people with high IQs tended to have difficulty with emotions, which would only make the feelings that the girl was having even harder. Unfortunately emotions were not logical.
She shrugged again and Archie resisted the urge to sigh.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Emma just nodded, choosing not to mention that he had been asking her questions for the past ten minutes and he hadn't asked permission for any of those.
"Do you know what EQ is?"
The blonde clenched her jaw, of course she knew what it was.
"Emotional quotient," she replied without a moment of hesitation.
"And you know the connection between high IQ and low EQ?" he asked.
Emma nodded again looking down at the the couch. She understood what emotions were, they were biological responses to stimuli, they had some kind of advantage but that was something that she didn't understand. Being scared hadn't exactly helped her when Mr Chase had his hand around her throat, being sad didn't make what happened go away. And it pissed her off so much that she felt this way when she allowed her mind to drift and she would suddenly feel anxious for no apparent reason. It was for that reason she had been so eager to help Henry, as long as she was tutoring, she wasn't thinking about anything else.
"Therapists have been trying to fix me for a while, I know," she shot back.
Archie's eyebrows shot up at her reaction, he had never thought that she would so much as talk let alone raise her voice, but he was determined to crank up the intensity of these sessions if he was ever going to get a result.
"Are you angry with me?" he asked calmly.
Emma blew out a breath and closed her eyes, "no," she replied simply.
"Then how do you feel?" he asked. He knew that she wouldn't be able to answer the question and he was being somewhat unfair, but if he was going to help her she needed to start to move forward.
Emma swallowed hard and just looked down at her lap as she shrugged again, she didn't understand how she felt or why she felt that way, which only led to frustration.
"Have you told Cora or Henry that you feel this way?"
"There's nothing to tell them, I'm fine," she mumbled.
Archie opened his mouth to reply, but the sound of a knock at the door cut him short and he looked over to the clock behind his back to see that their time had ended. He knew that this was going to be a long process, especially if the blonde girl refused to admit that there was anything wrong, but at least he has actually got some words out of her during this sessions. However, he couldn't help but wonder how she had hidden this from the family that she had been living with for ten days, he would have thought that they would have noticed if she had trouble with emotions. But he also knew that the whole situation was further complicated by the fact that most people would expect her to act like this following a trauma. It was for this reason that he wrote a note down on his pad to remind himself to call August Booth, he was fairly certain that he would be the only person capable of revealing the true influences of Emma's low EQ.
"Come in," he called and the door instantly opened to reveal the mayor. Obviously the woman had expected that nothing had been said during the meeting, which was why she had knocked to let him know the session had ended. Archie made a mental note to let her know that she shouldn't do that during the next session and he could probably do with the time to come up with some other approach.
"I'll see you in a few days," he said and smiled.
Emma just nodded and stood from the couch and mumbled, "thanks," as she did at the end of every session.
S
"That sounds like actual torture," said Lily with a laugh on the other end of the phone.
Emma rolled her eyes, knowing that the other girl would be able to guess what she was doing even though she couldn't see her. As her best friend, Lily Page had long ago gotten used to the way that Emma acted and her opinions on emotions.
She often said how cute it was that a genius could be so confused by a smile, so she couldn't imagine that the way that Regina acted made things any clearer to the teen.
"It wasn't that bad," Enna replied, though her voice told a completely different story, "he just thinks that he can cure low EQ."
"Cure is the wrong word, Em," Lily shot back in the same stern tone that she used whenever her friend implied that she were somehow diseased, "he probably just thinks that he can help you understand your emotions and you know that it's possible. Just because no therapist has ever tried that hard…"
"I guess it helps that Cora probably pays him more than he would ever get from the state."
"Don't you think that's exactly why you should actually take advantage of this and cooperate with him?" Lily asked. As much as Lily loved her friend, it had never been an easy task trying to convince her that emotions were important when she was so adamant that they were illogical. However, that didn't mean that she was a sociopath, she still had emotions and just couldn't understand them. Lily couldn't even imagine how frustrating that must be.
"I can't suddenly become emotional, Lily," Emma grumbled as she fell harder against her pillow.
"You do realise that you're not a robot right?" Lily retorted, "a robot wouldn't call me on a flip phone when they have an iPhone 12."
"But that proves that emotions are pointless, there is no logical reason to carry on using this just because it makes me feel more comfortable," Emma replied and frowned at the device in her hand, wishing that she knew how to explain herself better. Of course, she understood that having issues explaining herself was part of having low EQ, but knowing that didn't help when she actually tried. Thankfully, Lily seemed to understand for the most part.
"You should tell them, you know?"
"Cora and Henry already know, it would have been in my file," Emma replied, though she knew full well who her friend was actually talking about.
"You should tell their kids," Lily said with a sigh of exasperation, "how are they supposed to get to know you if they don't know something so basic?"
"You sound like Archie," Emma deadpanned, "they already think I'm weird."
"You are weird Emma," Lily retorted, "but you're also a beautiful genius, you're far more interesting than you are weird. If you don't tell them anything they will never get to know that."
Emma just blew out a breath since she knew that there was just no point arguing with Lily sometimes.
"They already know that you have a photographic memory, just mention that you would qualify for Mensa and go from there," Lily added.
Emma just hummed in agreement, though she knew that there was very little chance that she would be having this conversation any time soon.
Before she could pretend to go along with it, she was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Dinner's ready, Em," Zelena announced on the other side of the door.
"Okay," she called back.
"Everyone around the dinner table sounds like the perfect time to make an EQ-related announcement," Lily said.
"I'll call you later," Emma replied, choosing not to mention that there was no way she would even consider making such an announcement at dinner before she flipped the phone closed and stood from the bed.