T/W For homophobia and physical abuse
I'm really sorry for the super long wait but I completely lost inspiration and I had uni to focus on... I've had a spark of inspiration now so hopefully it was worth the wait
Chapter seven
Regina stood outside the door plastered with Marvel decals and took a deep breath. Judging by the most prominent character proudly splayed across the wood, she had no doubt that she had chosen the best possible comic book to get the information that she wanted, but there was also the possibility that the boy would outright refuse to give her the information that she needed. There was every 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 was one of the most charismatic people in the whole of Storybrooke and she couldn't even find a way to talk to a girl who was literally living in her house.
Of course, this little crush that had yet to go away wasn't exactly helpful and she found it so frustrating. 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 she had quickly decided that it would be best to just wait until he got home in a couple of days.
With another deep breath, she steeled her nerves and raised her closed fist, finally bringing it up the door. Stiffly, she knocked slowly for a couple of seconds and then took a step back as she tried to wait patiently.
After a couple of seconds past, 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 forward without move warning.
The boy raised his eyebrow at his shocked sister and tilted his head in confusion, "did you not expect me to open the door?"
Regina stood stunned for a few more moments, before her senses caught up with her and she shook her head, "I needed 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 since she used to read comic books to him before she suddenly decided that they didn't interest her anymore and she gave everything she had to him. Recently, however, the only reason that the cheerleader would have to knock on his door would be that Cora or Henry Sr had sent her to go and get him.
He stepped aside and awkwardly gestured for her to enter his room and Regina frowned a moment before she took the invitation and crossed over the threshold. She had expected the room to be a complete and utter mess, but it occurred to her that he must have cleaned it since the last time that she had seen it. This thought made her wonder exactly when the last time she had been in here had been, but that thought was caught short when she realised that her brother was staring at her intently as if she was crazy.
"Are you okay?" He asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her mental 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 hadn't come right out and asked him what she wanted to know. The subject of her inquiry was not something that she was able to think about without either closing off herself off and acting indifferent or she would blush deeply (assuming that there were no witnesses, of course).
"I'm fine," she replied far 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 herself 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."
The boy frowned. 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 that he was hoping to get for his birthday since there was no way that he would ever be able to save up enough money for it before then. He blinked at it a few times and then looked from it to Regina and then back down to it once again.
Finally, the initial shock of the fact that his sister had given him an unexpected gift and he remembered that she had 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 as he 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 the bribe when it 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 that she wanted to know if she 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.
"It won't be long until she has her cast off and mom will make her go to school...how am I supposed to make her comfortable when I can't even talk to her?"
Henry frowned at her words. He knew that she cared a little about their new 'sibling' but he had no idea that she was freaking out this much about being her guide at school. As-a-matter-of-fact, he had no idea that she was even capable of thinking about the comfort of other people.
"Have you tried to talk to her?" He asked after thinking about it for a moment, "she won't bite, you know?" He chose not to mention the fact that the blonde did seem to act a bit 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 now way that he would be able to understand what had happened to her, so it was for that reason that he had never once tried to ask her to talk about it. But he also got the sense that there was something else going on in her mind other than reeling from a trauma.
Regina blew out a breath as she thought back to their last few interactions. The only time that they had something resembling a real conversation was the first time that they had met and that didn't last as long as it probably should have considering that she was supposed be making her feel as though she was welcome.
"Whenever I try to talk to her...everything gets really awkward and she looks like she wants to run away..." she sighed and just about stopped herself from placing her head in her hands and giving her brother a pleading look. She didn't want to have to explain to him that her sudden interest was because of a crush that she'd been having on their new foster sister. "Mom will kill me if she thought that I wasn't very helpful on her first day of school...so I just brought you the comic book for advice...and so you wouldn't 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 and that she was simply just nervous to try and interact with Emma, which he couldn't help but find somewhat funny. He was sure that there wasn't a single other person in town who she would be nervous to talk to.
"Do you have any advice or not?" She groaned, after she decided that he was taking too long to reply.
"She's really easy to talk to...I don't think that there's anything in particular that I could tell you," he frowned, "all I know is that she loves school and that she is a huge Marvel fan...Maybe you could start off with a DC vs Marvel debate?"
Regina rolled her eyes at the thought, though she was sure that she would be more than capable of carrying that debate for longer than all of the conversations they'd had so far combined.
"Is that what the two of you 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 knew that he didn't want to tell anyone about what he and Emma spent so many hours doing until he was able to prove that these tutoring sessions were actually working, but he figured that telling Regina would probably only make Regina like Emma more and make it easier for her to start seeing the blonde as a normal person.
"If I tell you, you can't tell mom, dad or Zelena," he said slowly,
The older of the pair's eyebrows shot up as she tried to think of what could they could possibly do, but nothing came to mind and 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?"
The brunette frowned. She was sure that was something that she should have probably known about the girl living in her house. She was well aware that the girl was smart, but she had no idea that she was actually a genius which somehow made her feel even more nervous to try and talk to her. How was she supposed to make someone so smart feel comfortable at a school that she was probably only going to attend because she was going to be forced to do so? Emma was clearly far happier studying at home than she imagined she would 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 days after she first got here, I asked her if she would tutor me in exchange for comic books…I don't think she's read of them yet though since she spends a lot of time trying to teach me…"
Regina's eyes widened. She didn't think that there was anything that could make the girl anymore amazing, but somehow she had managed it.
"And…why can't I tell anyone?" she frowned.
"Well…for one, it might not work and I don't want to disappoint anyone and make Emma look bad…and I don't want mom and dad to think that I'm using her," he admitted.
"They wouldn't think that, you're already their favourite for being the only one to try and spend time with her," Regina assured.
Henry nodded in agreement, though he didn't look completely convinced. He was still waiting for any grades from all of the work he had been doing and he had been so worried that he would fail and disappoint Emma, it would only make it worse if his parents expected him to have suddenly aced every assignment.
The two of them sat in silence for a few moments longer beforeRegina decided that she wasn't going to get anymore information from him. She now saw that this whole thing had been a stalling tactic. It wasn't the best of ideas to ask a thirteen-year-old how she should act around Emma, they clearly didn't talk about the same things that Emma would talk about with someone of her own age range, which was something that she would have figured out if she hadn't been so desperate to postpone talking to her crush. However, none of this information made the thought of trying to connect with the adorable blonde any less daunting and she knew that there was only one person who would be able to offer her advice and she decided that she would be meeting with him as soon as he returned to town.
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 with 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.
The blonde 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 Graham 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," 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."
"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 hand'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 and she was pretty sure that the woman would have 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 shrugged again. 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 what 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 with the root reason for what had happened.
"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 busing 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 an even harder time trying to understand what she was feeling since there was no logical explanations for her emotions.
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.
"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 away and she would suddenly feel anxious for no apparent reason. It was for that 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 smiled.
Emma just nodded and stood from the couch and mumbled, "thanks," as she did at the end of every session.
"That sounds like a torture session," Lily laughed on the other end of the phone.
Emma rolled her eyes deeply. As her best friend, Lily had long ago gotten used to the way that Emma acted and just how little she understood emotions. The brunette usually just said that it was adorable just how confused a smile could make the genius. She could only imagine that the way Regina acted around her just caused more confusion since the blonde had long ago trying to figure out if people had feelings for her. She had decided that she just didn't understand other people so it was best to just stop trying, which probably part of the reason that she'd only managed to maintain one friend throughout her entire life.
"It wasn't that bad," Emma replied, though her voice told a completely different story, "he just thinks that he can cure low EQ…"
"Cure is the wrong word," Lily shot back instantly, she hated it when Emma spoke about herself as if she were diseased. "He probably just thinks that he can help you better understand your emotions and you know that is possible, just because no therapist has ever tried that hard…"
"Yeah," Emma sighed, "I guess it helps that Cora probably pays him a lot more than what he would get from the state."
"Which is exactly why you should take advantage of this and maybe actually cooperate with him?" Lily shot back. Honestly, she loved talking to her best friend but trying to convince her that emotions were important wasn't exactly an easy task. Plus, the sooner the blonde accepted the fact that she had emotions and learnt how to handle them better, the sooner she would be able to connect with Regina. Even if she had learnt how to act as though there was absolutely nothing wrong with her, because she believed it was illogical to feel anything at all, Lily was painfully aware of the fact that it wasn't particularly good for the girl's mental health. Even if Emma wanted to act as though she didn't have emotions, she wasn't a sociopath.
"I can't use suddenly become emotional, Lily," Emma grumbled as she fell harder against her pillow.
"You do understand that you're not a robot, right Em?" Lily laughed, "a robot wouldn't keep using a flip phone when they have an iPhone 7."
"But that just proves that emotions are pointless, there's no logical reason to carry on using this, it just makes me feel more comfortable," Emma frowned, wishing that she knew how to explain herself better. Of course, she understood that being unable to explain herself was a part of having low EQ, but knowing tat didn't exactly help her in real life, but Lily always seemed to understand.
"You should tell them, you know?"
"Cora and Henry would have read it in my file," Emma replied, knowing full well who she was actually talking about.
"You should tell their kids," Lily sighed, "how are they supposed to get to know you if they don't know something so basic about you?"
"You sound like Archie, Cora should just pay you instead," Emma deadpanned and she could practically feel Lily roll her eyes on the other end of the line. "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 blew out a breath, she knew there was no point in arguing with Lily.
"How do I come out with something like that? All they know is that I have a photographic memory…they don't know that I would qualify for Mensa…"
"And yet you still have to go to High School," Lily sighed, knowing that in another life the blonde would have probably already graduated college, but that would require actually have carers who would be willing (and able) to facilitate that process.
Emma hummed in agreement and she was about to reply, but she was interrupted by a knock at the door.
"Dinner's ready, Em," Zelena announced on the other side of the door.
"Okay," the blonde called back and heard the distinct sound of the red head walking towards the stairs.
"Everyone around the dinner table, sounds like the perfect time to make an EQ-related announcement," Lily said thoughtfully.
Emma rolled her eyes, deciding that she didn't have time right now to point out how she would never even consider blurting it out at dinner.
"I'll call you later," she replied before snapping the phone shut.
A/N Reviews would be much appreciate XD (Especially since I'm not sure whether people would still be interested in this fic...)
