Her smile
justanoutlaw asked for a oneshot of Charming realising how rare, but beautiful, his little girl's smile is. To be based on the song "Absolutely (Story of a girl)" by Nine Days.
This is the story of a girl
Who cried a river and drowned the whole world
And while she looked so sad in photographs
I absolutely love her, when she smiles.
She was one of the most beautiful women in the world to me. The other two being her mother and my own. Although, unlike those other two women, I rarely saw my baby girl smile. This world had been cruel to her, and in return, had left Emma scarred on the inside where nobody else could see the dreadful wounds that had been left behind. But I could. I saw them every day. I saw them in the way Emma carried herself. Her headstrong personality that faltered at the slightest hint of emotional intimacy.
It was strange, but when she was feeling overwhelmed, it was almost like I could feel her pain. I just knew when it was beginning to all become too much for Emma, I could feel it deep within my soul. That was when I had to step up and get her out of the situation. She would always act like she was fine, pretend like she didn't know why I had removed her from the situation, but deep down I knew that she knew, and that she was grateful.
But in between all the days of Emma's pain, for all the times I had to take her away from a potentially dangerous situation for her, there were beautiful moments. Moments when I saw my baby smile. It was so radiant that it lit up the whole room. I knew I would never tire of seeing her smile. Snow told me often that Emma has my smile, but (for all I was proud that she did) I never really saw it like that. To me, it was just Emma's smile. When things were bad, it was often one of the images in my head I brought to the front of my mind. It brought me so much joy when I thought about it. It was only ever made better if I had been the one to bring the smile to her lips. Those moments were simply magical to me. I couldn't see a day ahead in the future when they wouldn't be, and that was just fine by me.
