A sleepy little girl

A guest asked for a oneshot of Snow having to help a young Emma prepare right from taking a bath to dressing and taking breakfast because she is too sleepy to wake up properly and do it on her own and they need to be somewhere soon.

"Come on Emma." Snow begged her four year old daughter. "Please wake up?" Emma just mumbled something incoherently, too tired to so much as open her eyes properly. They'd had a Ball in the palace last night and it had taken both Snow and Charming ages afterwards to get Emma to sleep. They were making a long journey the next morning that required an early start. Emma wasn't great at early starts at the best of times, she really did require her beauty sleep. So today after having so little of it she just couldn't function at all. Snow sighed. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Sure, now that Emma was getting older and had the gross and fine motor skills to complete a lot of tasks with limited assistance Snow didn't help her so much anymore. Today was going to be a little step back in time for the mother and daughter. Snow had already run Emma a bath. So she scooped up her little girl from the bed and brought her to the tub. As quickly as possible, she got Emma clean and dried off again before dressing her in some comfortable gear to travel in. Emma normally hated having things done for her. It showed how tired she was that she wasn't putting up a fuss at all.

Once she was dressed, Snow got her now dry hair into an adorable braid she would never have been able to get Emma into had she been fully compos mentis. Secretly chuffed with her sneakiness, Snow then carried her tired little girl down to the kitchen for a quick breakfast before they left.

"You can go back to sleep in the carriage baby." Snow promised Emma, kissing the side of her head. "You just need to have a little something to eat first. You're being such a good girl." Snow praised her. Charming was having his own breakfast as Snow came in with Emma.

"Morning baby girl." Charming greeted her. He frowned at the lack of response.

"Someone's not woken up properly yet." Snow explained as she gently deposited Emma on Charming's lap so she didn't flop over again. Charming kept her upright, kissing the top of her head. He smiled. She definitely wasn't a little shepherdess in the making. Snow came over with a bowl of porridge and managed to coax half of it into Emma's stomach. She gave up after that, figuring half was good enough. Snow smiled. Emma looked so cute with her little head bobbing up and down. Her little eyes almost closed. Snow placed the bowl down and picked Emma back up. Her little head found its way nestled into the crook of Snow's shoulder. Snow kissed the top of her head.

"You've done good baby girl." Charming got up, placing her arm around Snow.

"How long do you think before she's out cold in the carriage?" He whispered in Snow's ear. She chuckled gently.

"Judging by the heavy breathing against my neck…minus ten minutes."