T/W For abuse, violence and homophobia
A/N Sorry for the long wait, I have no excuse but hopefully this chapter is worth it :)
Chapter nine
"What is it exactly that you think you're most concerned about?" Archie asked.
Emma ran her nail across her once casted arm and she frowned for a moment when her fingers didn't come up against any resistance. Even if it had been hours, she still hadn't got used to the idea that her arm was now completely free. It was still stiff but at least she could now touch her own arm without being told to stop by anyone who happened to be in the room (she'd even received a text from Lily to tell her to stop thinking about itching it once). However, if it meant that she could continue working from home, she wouldn't complain if her arm was broken from now until graduation.
The blonde took a deep breath and looked up from her arm so that she could look at her therapist. Obviously Lily had probably been right about how he actually wanted to help her, even if she was convinced that the money Cora was paying him per hour was a great motivator, the fact remained that this man clearly was interested in helping her. She didn't particularly want to discuss school, but she also knew that allowing herself to dwell on the issue would only make her more and more anxious the longer that she attempted to come up with some logical reason behind what she was feeling. The truth was that she knew that there was a logical reason, High School was a horrible place full of people who struck at the first sign of weakness and her weaknesses were online for everyone to see. However, she didn't see why she should be afraid of something when she knew exactly what was going to happen. After what she had been through, a couple of bullies at school should have been nothing, so why was she still afraid?
When she didn't make any attempt to answer his question, Archie tilted his head. It was obvious that she was thinking through the best way to verbalise why it was that she didn't want to go to school, but her mind just wouldn't allow her to do so. It was for this reason that he decided to go a different route, knowing that the blonde would have no problem answering the following question:
"Do you find lessons challenging?" he asked.
Emma brought her eyebrows together and frowned deeply as she shook her head almost instantly, "no…" she said. Lesson content had never been difficult for her, for as long as she could remember (which was much longer than most people) she knew that she was special when it came to academic. Even if she didn't remember much about her parents, she could distinctly recall a conversation between the pair whereby they were discussing just how amazing she was at games that were designed for much older children. Emma often thought about how her parents would have felt if they had ever had the chance to find out the real reason behind her accelerated development. Surely, any parent would be happy that their child was a genius, right? But there was also a part of her that wondered whether she would have been able to connect with her parents on an emotional level. Maybe if she'd grown up with two loving parents, she could have gotten the help she needed much earlier on for her EQ-related issues? She knew for a fact that there were methods to help people like her and she often imagined that her parents would have done everything in their power to make sure that their daughter didn't turn into the emotional train wreck that she knew she currently was.
Archie studied the girl for a moment as he wondered exactly what she could be thinking about. He often noticed that her mind seemed to drift off and he assumed that she was either experiencing some kind of flashback or calculating the cubic space of the clock hung on the opposite wall. Either way, he knew that he would need to bring her mind back to the issue at hand.
"School should be about the lessons, should it not?" he asked.
Emma blinked out of her thoughts and just shrugged, "I guess it should be…"
"But it really isn't?" Archie suppled.
The blonde nodded and blew out a breath of frustration.
"Have you chosen all of your classes?" the red-head asked.
A small smile tugged at the corner of Emma's lips as she nodded and Archie tilted his head at her expression. Of course, he didn't know that the thought of choosing classes reminded the teen of the hour she had spent with Regina going over all of the electives that Storybrooke High had to offer. Even if the whole conversation had only been about school, it had still been a whole conversation with another person her age who was in the same state. Plus, there was also the fact that Regina had suggested that Emma should choose Music so that they would actually have at least one class together. The brunette may have been getting good grades at school, but that didn't mean that she was quite ready to start taking twelfth grade classes like her blonde 'buddy' would be doing. Cora had spoken with Archie extensively about the possibility of Emma just moving up to twelfth grade, but they had ultimately decided against it for the moment. The blonde graduating two years early would just create a whole host of issues when it came to her position in the foster system; plus, there was also the fact that moving up two grades would only cause more problems with their plans to try and help the blonde teen in the EQ department. If she couldn't connect with her peers, then placing her in an environment with people who were older than her certainly wouldn't be helpful. However, Archie was slightly concerned about what would happen if the blonde remained completely unchallenged at school, so he had insisted that she should be allowed to take at least two or three higher grade classes until they ascertained exactly what would actually be best for her. It wasn't as though Storybrooke High was exactly equipped for dealing with a genius.
"Should I take that smile to mean that you have?" the therapist asked with his own smile starting to appear. He made a mental note that he would need to eventually need to ask her what it was that made her suddenly seem so happy since he was relatively certain that it couldn't just be the thought of her classes. However, he decided against asking now since they did have a lot to cover in this session to make sure that she wouldn't be a complete anxious mess on Monday morning.
"I chose music," she replied.
"Music isn't very logical," Archie pointed out.
Emma bit the inside of her cheek when she realised that she hadn't actually considered the fact that she would actually need to do music in a Music lesson. Music had theory that she could study, but there was no logical way to know whether she would be good at it or not since she hadn't gone to many schools that had the funding for a music programme.
Music certainly wasn't logical and she hadn't really gone to many schools that actually had the funding for it, which meant that she had no idea whether she would actually be good at it. Somehow, the thought was actually exciting, she'd never walked into a class before and not known if she would be good at it or not. Now that she thought about it, she didn't even know what instrument she could possibly play.
"I know," she replied simply, but didn't move to offer any other insight into her reasoning for choosing a subject that so clearly went against her personality.
Archie nodded when it became clear that she wasn't going to say anything more on the subject and he asked, "so, if it isn't the content of the classes that is bothering you, then you must know why it is that you would much rather home school yourself?"
The blonde just nodded again and the red-head mentally blew out a breath of frustration. He knew that he had a much higher threshold for patience considering his chosen profession, so he was slightly concerned that the teen wouldn't be able to find someone at school who was quite so patient. He knew that there was almost a 0% chance that she would actually make friends with someone in this town who she would be discussing what happened with, which meant that it would be 100% his job to get her to start working through her issues and even though he hadn't really hoped for quick progress, he had hoped that they would have at least been able to sustain a full conversation before she went to school. Instead, they still had long pauses between each question and Emma had yet to actually say what he would consider to be a full sentence about how she was feeling.
After another moment of silence, Archie said, "you do know what it is that is bothering you the most then?"
The blonde sighed when it occurred to her that this man obviously wanted to her to verbalise her feelings and she replied in a voice close to a whisper, "from my experience…people are so fascinated by the new foster child that they forget that I'm actually a person….and it's going to be worse this time…because…"
When the girl trailed off, Archie just continued to look at her expectantly as she searched for the right words.
When it became apparent that the red-head was not going to ask another question, Emma swallowed hard and looked down at her lap, "everyone is going to know that…I'm gay…"
The therapist smiled sadly at the shame written across her features at the word, even if the blonde didn't want to admit it to herself, the Chases had obviously had a profound effect on her own perception of herself. Then again, he supposed that if someone beat the shit out of him everyday, telling her that she was disgusting, he could see how she could start believing the things he said. He was determined that she wouldn't believe a single thing that those people said to her by the time she left Storybrooke (which would hopefully be far away in the future, if ever).
A silence passed between the pair as Archie tried to think of the right way to word his reply, he didn't want to tell her that person in Storybrooke was forward thinking and would accept her instantly, since he knew that just couldn't be true. Statistically, there was going to be at least a couple of students at the High School who would use it as ammo to torture the new student and there were certainly parents in town who were very traditional and would have passed their values down to their children; however, he truly hoped that there would be people at the school who would prove that the horrible people made up the minority.
"Is that a bad thing?" Archie asked.
Emma swallowed hard and said, "it could be…"
"There are certainly people who are not very progressive," Archie replied, "but is it really logical to believe that you will be treated the same way again in a relatively small high school in a town whereby you have been fostered by the mayor?"
The blonde frowned as she thought this through. There was no doubt that Cora knew about her sexual orientation and she would have never fostered her if she was against it, in fact, the woman seemed to be just as fiercely protective as she would be of any of her real children. A small smile graced at the thought of the mayor tearing someone apart if she ever found out that they had tried to say anything to her foster child and the smile widened slightly more when an image of Regina doing the same passed through her mind.
However, the smile quickly fell away when she realised that she didn't even know if Regina knew about her sexual orientation, for all she knew, the brunette would feel the same way as her former foster parents had.
"Storybrooke is a small town, Emma, and you have a lot of people in your corner. You need to know that you are safe and free to be who you really are," Archie said softly since he was pretty sure that the blonde wasn't going to actually reply to his previous question. He understood that she knew that it was illogical to believe that she would face the same kind of abuse in two foster homes in a row since the statistics wouldn't support that, but he also knew that she still felt a certain fear rise whenever her mind drifted to the every potential possibility. He imagined that genius mind of hers had been working through every possibility since the moment she'd had that cast off and none of her thoughts would actually be supported by any evidence from Storybrooke High School since she had never actually been there during school hours.
The blonde just nodded again and continued to look at her lap. Archie looked over his shoulder and looked at the clock behind him, the session was a few minutes from being over and he could see that the teen had officially closed off for today. He had come to notice that there was point in each session whereby there was no chance that he would be getting anything more than a nod or a shrug from the girl and that meant that it was time to make a note of what he wanted to focus on for next time and let her go out and meet Cora.
This time, it was obvious that they were both aware that she was just anxious about the unknown and that the only way that she would be able to get passed this feeling would be to actually go to the school and see that it wasn't as bad as whatever she was picturing in her head. It was undeniable that she probably wasn't going to have a completely normal first day considering her exceptional circumstances, but Archie just hoped that she would be able to get through at least a few days before the select innate awfulness of teenagers started to rear its ugly head.
Archie hoped against hope that by then she would have met at least a couple people who would be willing to protect her until she was able to protect herself since he somehow doubted that Regina Mills would be the right person to do that. He had agreed that it made sense for the middle Mills child to be Emma's buddy since they would also be living together and it would give Emma a consistent person who she could rely on for at least the first couple weeks, but Archie couldn't help but think that the cheerleader wouldn't be the person who the blonde could rely on forever.
Though he sincerely hoped that the brunette would prove him wrong.
Emma let out a small hiss when she ran her finger across the bruising underneath her eyes. She swallowed hard and forced herself to look into the mirror.
"Fuck," she muttered as she inspected the noticeable bend on her nose where Mr Chase's fist had collided with it. The blonde flinched when she instinctively took in a sharp breath through her nose and the memory and she instantly knew that was a mistake as pain began to radiate through her sinuses.
It was obviously stupid to think that there was any world where it would be okay to read a story to Victoria, but the girl had pouted profusely and it wasn't her fault that she didn't understand that her foster sister was no longer being treated as part of the family. Though, Emma was sure the the fact that she had to sleep in Mr Chase's study ( . the furthest possible room from Nathan and Victoria's bedrooms) should have tipped her off.
Since she had started spending all of her time in there Mr Chase had began to methodically move things out of the room since he seemed to think that she was infectious. Which meant that it was profound bad luck that he happened to walk in at the very moment that Victoria had cuddled closer to her on the couch considering that he had basically pretended that she didn't exist for the last twenty-four hours.
Silence had fallen over the room when the door handle began to turn. Emma had known that Victoria would be sent out of the room and that he would attack without hesitation, but she didn't expect him to just launch forward and punch her square in the nose. He then walked out without another word, probably planning what he was going to say to Victoria to explain why she shouldn't spend with Emma.
The blonde had remained coiled over in pain for a moment as she clutched her nose and prayed that it wasn't broken. A broken nose would mean no school, she had been allowed to go to school for the past couple of days on the condition that she wore clothes that covered any bruises and that she found some excuse to get out of wasn't sure that she would be able to handle this much longer if she couldn't at least get out of the house for eight hours every week-day.
She had finally built up the courage and dragged herself over to the mirror to discover that her suspicions had been correct.
An hour later (during which she was sure her foster family had left to have dinner without her) the bleeding seemed to have stopped but the bruising was now undeniable. There was no way that she would be able to leave this house now.
The blonde blew out a small breath (which caused her to flinch again) and she went back over to slump down onto the couch that had become her bed.
She resolved that she could just try and sleep since she wouldn't be able to feel the constant jolts of pain pulsing through her face if she did; however, any attempt to try and do so were thwarted by the sound of buzzing inside her shirt. She always made sure that the phone was somewhere where it couldn't be found by the Chases since they would only think that she was planning to report them and would take it from her. To be fair, that was kind of exactly what she was planning to do, but she just had to hold onto the device until August was back in town.
She bit her lip as she sat up and pulled the flip phone out. For a moment, she imagined what she would do if it was August calling to check up on her. She could tell him everything then and there, but that would mean that the man would have to come home from his honeymoon two weeks early and that just didn't seem fair. Before he had left, she had told him to not worry, the Chases were a nice family (or so she had thought at the time). The one bright side of this was that she was sure that every foster family she had after this would be able to read about her little 'secret' in her file, so she wouldn't have any nasty, homophobic surprises later on. This was of course assuming that she even made it until August got back.
The teen shook her head and looked down at the caller-id on the front screen and she blew out a little sigh of relief when she saw 'Lily' written on the screen. Though she had been texting the brunette every chance she got, she wasn't going to tell the girl what was going on yet. That would be just as good as reporting the Chases and she couldn't run the risk of Victoria and Nathan being assigned to the type of social worker who they would only meet once.
"Hey," she answered on the last ring and swallowed hard when she heard some anguish in her own voice.
There was a silence on the other side of the line, before Lily asked rather seriously, "are you okay?"
Emma closed her eyes in frustration, she had been able to act that everything was okay when she went to school, but there was no one there who she would actually call her friend. Sure, there were a few people who she felt comfortable enough talking to (usually about school-related topics) but there just hadn't been anyone who she was close enough to for them to know that there was something going with her. Lily, on the other hand, had basically known her forever at this point and it apparently only took one word for the other teen to realise that there was something seriously wrong happening to her best friend.
"I just have a cold," she lied when she realised that her voice must sound different,.
There was another silence as the teen considered whether she believed the girl. She could tell that there was definitely something more than that, but her mind didn't go straight to thinking that she'd had her nose broken because her foster parents had found out that she was gay, because why would it? This was obviously something that she would regret later when she saw a news article about her friend who had stopped answering calls and texts.
"You have a cold?" Lily repeated sceptically as her mind began to work through the possibilities of why her friend was lying to her. The hoarseness in Emma's voice sounded like far more than a simple cold.
"It might be the flu," the blonde corrected after a moment of thought. She hated lying to one of the only two people who had been there for her during her life, but she knew that Lily would understand when she found out the truth. She just hoped that the other teen wouldn't blame herself for not noticing should anything particularly bad happen. After all, the brunette was states away right now, it would be unfair to expect her to carry that kind of weight for not noticing based on a single phone call.
"Emma…" Lily began.
In that moment, the blonde almost gave up and told her. Why should she have to live in constant fear just so that she could make sure that some kids didn't end up having the same shitty life that she had? But nothing came out of her mouth when she opened it to let everything spill out. Her mind just wouldn't allow her to do something so selfish, even if she really wanted to.
The attempt was cut short anyway when she heard the distinct sound of the front door opening.
The blonde took in a sharp breath and muttered, "I should really go to sleep anyway, talk to you later," before she flipped the phone shut and shoved it back inside her shirt before she flopped back against the couch and closed her eyes tight.
She tried not to move when she heard the door to the study open. A second passed before she heard the door close again and she opened her eyes just to make sure that she was alone, she had learnt that they wouldn't hurt if she was 'sleeping'.
She sighed and turned on her side so that she was facing the back of the couch, right now, sleeping did seem like the be the best option.
She just hoped that she hadn't ruined everything by acting so suspiciously to the girl who was currently sat in her bedroom frowning at her phone.
"Are you still in your room?" Killian asked.
Regina glared down at the phone sat on her dressing table, she knew that she had been the one to call the other teen and then put him on loud speaker as she began her make-up process, but she was beginning to regret that since he had spent the last half-an-hour judging her for not going to ask how she was feeling this morning.
"I'm still getting ready," she replied as she ran a blending brush across her right cheek (as she had been doing for about ten minutes now).
"How is that even possible?" Killian asked, sounding genuinely shocked.
Regina just rolled her eyes again and placed the brush back down to the tabletop.
"We can't all just roll out of bed and throw on whatever clothes are nearest," she replied with exasperation seeping through each word, though she knew that she would be far more nervous right not if she didn't call Killian to ask for help. His irritating nature made for a good distraction from everything that she was worried about.
"I'll have you know that this perfection doesn't happen that fast," Killian replied and Regina imagined that he was currently waving his hand over his body. There was a silence and Killian imagined that Regina was currently going for the world record in eye rolling, so he decided that a swift change of topic was in order, "my point is that you should at least say 'good morning' to her before you leave the house."
"Regina, it's time for breakfast," Henry Senior called after a knock on the door before he walked away. The man had told her almost every morning but she was fairly certain that they no longer expected her to actually join the family at the table. Her parents were just happy when they got her to take some toast to-go under protest.
"You heard your father, Gina, it's time for breakfast," Killian laughed.
Regina sighed and considered this. It was true that she had actually been ready for quite some time since she had woken up a lot earlier than she usually would this morning. She supposed that actually eating 'the most important meal of the day' at the table couldn't hurt.
"Fine," she sighed again and picked up her phone. She swiftly turned off loud speaker ad pulled the device up to her ear, "but how am I supposed to…"
"Be nice to her?" the other teen supplied.
"Make her comfortable at school," Regina shot back and began walking towards her door and then into the hallway.
"I think that keeping her away from Kathryn would be a good first step…maybe get Ruby to run interference for the first few days?"
"That actually wouldn't be a bad idea…" Regina replied as she started walking down the stairs, she certainly didn't want a repeat of what happened at the mall.
"So…did you help her pick out something to wear on her first day?" Killian asked.
Regina cringed as she made it down the final step, "was I supposed to?"
"It would have been nice, you know what that word means, right?" the boy teen teased on the other end of the line.
She was about to make some scathing reply, but she clamped her mouth shut when she realised that she was now close enough to the dining room to be heard by her family. There was no doubt that Emma would currently be sitting at the table since there was no way that Cora would allow the nervous blonde to go without food on her first day of school.
With a deep breath, Regina took a step forward so that she could make her presence known. For a moment, she stood rooted in her place as her eyes fell onto her 'buddy'. She had noticed over the last two weeks that the girl tended to wear loose (and no doubt comfortable) sports-like wear in the house. Regina couldn't really blame her since she couldn't imagine dressing up in her own home, but that meant that she had no idea what to expect the blonde to wear to school, especially since she had no clue what the girl had actually brought from the mall after she had dragged Kathryn away from her.
It was for this reason that she paused for a moment at the insanely tight black skinny jeans with rips at the knees, with purple hi-top Converse that matched the t-shirt she was wearing underneath a black bomber jacket. Somehow, the outfit itself was helping the girl inch away from nerdy adorable to nerdy hot and Regina was sure that if the bespectacled teen wasn't currently frowning down at her plate as she pushed scrambled egg around it, she would just be plain hot. But she knew that the blonde was quite far away from having that kind of confidence, though she found herself wishing that she wasn't top far away.
Regina swallowed hard when she realised that she was a second away from looking weird and she prayed that she wasn't blushing as hard as she felt she was in that moment.
"Regina?" Killian asked and the girl wondered whether she had missed something that he had said. It may have felt like minutes had passed when she had looked at Emma, but she sincerely hoped that it was only a second or two at the most.
"Regina?" Cora seemed to repeat and the other four sat at the table looked up at her with curious expressions.
"I'll talk to you at school," she muttered into the phone and hung up before Killian could protest.
Once she locked her phone, she smiled at her confused parents and took the only vacant seat at the table (which just so happened to be next to Emma).
"Good morning," Regina smiled, before she asked, "could you pass the toast please?"
Emma's eyes widened as she considered whether she had ever been this close to Regina Mills. The brunette had sat at her desk while she was on the bed when they had gone through the electives and even that had almost too much for her to handle.
After a very noticeable pause, the blonde reached forward and grabbed the toast rack before she placed it next to the cheerleader.
"Morning," the blonde replied in a barely audible voice.
"Thank you," Regina said with a genuine smile as she plucked a piece of toast from the rack and placed it on her plate.
Emma returned the smile as she picked up her fork again and slowly began to place the pieces of egg into her mouth.
Cora exchanged a frown with her husband. Maybe Regina wouldn't make as terrible a buddy as everyone seemed to think she would?
A/N Please let me know what you thought, reviews really help with motivation and inspiration :D
