Little scars
KatCS15 asked for a oneshot of Emma having severe eczema when she was younger. As a result, she's left with a lot of scars due to her scratching. Present day, Snow sees the scars and think it's due to abuse. Emma explains the truth and tells her mom she was always very insecure about her skin. Set just after the curse broke. Trigger warning for mentions of child abuse.
Angel: this is awful similar to a prompt I got right before this that would lead me to suspect you could be the same requester.
Emma hadn't really thought about her skin in a long time. It had settled down as she became an adult and she didn't really notice the faint scars left behind. That didn't mean other people didn't notice. Now that the weather was getting warmer, Emma was wearing more and more short sleeved tops. Snow quickly tuned into the tiny little scars up and down Emma's arms. She thought about them a lot, ever since she had first spotted them. They worried her something awful. She knew Emma's past held dreadful secrets, some of which Snow knew were best left to be kept as secrets. Others though, Snow felt she could gently coax Emma into sharing. She wondered if the story behind her arms would be one of them. She waited until it was the weekend, and Emma was stress-free and Henry was with Regina until she broached the subject.
"Emma?" Snow asked gently.
"Yeah?" Emma responded, not looking up from her phone. Snow bit her lip, wondering if she should maybe just leave it. No, it was now or never.
"I was just wondering about your arms." Snow blurted out quickly. Emma now looked at her arms, wondering what her mom meant. "The scars." Snow added quietly. Emma now realised what her mom meant.
"Oh these." Emma said calmly. "No big deal. I had bad eczema as a kid. It was hard not to scratch, so I ended up with scars." Emma explained. She looked over and saw her mom looked kind of relieved. "You thought it was…inflicted damage, didn't you?" Emma asked. Snow stiffened, but nodded. "I can understand why." Emma admitted. "I promise that it wasn't."
"Good." Snow said seriously, reaching over and squeezing Emma's hand. Emma smiled back. She didn't have the heart to tell her mother there and then that just because her conclusions weren't correct this time, didn't necessarily mean they would be wrong all the time.
