Twice
A guest asked for a oneshot of Emma giving birth during the events of the musical episode. There's yet another curse that is broken by this child 28 years later. She turns to her parents for advice on how to parent a 28 year old. Does contain slight spoilers thanks to JMo's shade!
"This is surreal." Emma said, pacing up and down. They hadn't even had a chance to prepare for this. None of them knew the curse was coming. None of them knew the baby had been spared. "My daughter is a baby! Hope is a baby! She can't be the same age as me!"
"Yeah, imagine that." Charming said, both empathetically and slightly sarcastically." Emma stopped and looked at her parents.
"I know…but that was different." She protested. "Ok, sure, up until the last minute you thought at least mom was coming with me, but at least you knew it was happening. I didn't have a clue Hope was going to be taken from me. Now she's an adult who's grown up her whole life knowing she would meet us again nearly three decades later, and I don't have a clue what to do." Emma said helplessly, she flopped down on the couch, running her fingers through her hair. Snow came over behind her and gently squeezed her shoulder.
"It's not an easy situation." Snow said honestly. "There is no quick fix. It's going to take time for you to build a relationship."
"It won't be the relationship you envisioned having with your daughter, but it will still be a beautiful thing that will grow, and it won't change the fact you love her more than the world. You just need to give her the time and space to love you back." Charming added. Emma sighed. She had been pretty hard on her parents back when the curse first broke. She hoped, since Hope at least knew who her family was and that she was loved. Who could have known something like this would happen twice in the same family?
