This chapter is for princessceairra with the prompt: "Emma having a nightmare about her time in the system and Regina helps her through it" Warning for a mention of rape.

Emma was at new foster home. Again. She was honestly getting tired of being moved from one house to another, but her social worker was getting tired of chasing after her once she had run away. Neither was very happy with the situation.

The home that she was at now made her uneasy. Her social worker had thrown her here at the last minute, not really taking the time to check and make sure that it would be a good place to live. She had just wanted to hand Emma off to someone else.

Emma had skipped dinner that night, a thing she usually did whenever she got to a new home, and was just relaxing on her bed. Really it was more like a cot, but it was better than nothing.

The sun had set a little while ago, and Emma looked out at the stars. When she was little, she had wished on a star every night that someone would come and adopt her. But now she knew that wishes were only for babies.

A knock sounded on Emma's door. "Who is it?" she asked. Her tone was anything but friendly, encouraging the person on the other side to just leave her alone.

"Robert," a voice said from the other side of the door. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Emma said. She stayed lying on the bed, facing her window. She didn't really care about what her new foster father had to say. He probably wanted to tell her to stop moping.

Robert came into the room and sat on the edge of Emma's bed behind her. "How're you holding up?"

Emma shrugged. "The usual."

"You didn't come down for dinner, so I brought you up a little something," Robert said. Emma rolled over to face him and was met with the strong scent of alcohol. Eyes widening, Emma went to scoot away from him, but his hand grabbed her arm.

"Shhh," Robert said. "Don't make any noise."

"What are you doing?" Emma asked, voice shaking. "Let go of me."

Robert reached out and went to touch Emma's face, but she dodged him, trying again to pull away. "Let go!" she said, a little louder.

Suddenly, Robert had her pinned to the bed. She writhed and tried to scream, but his hand came to cover her mouth. "Don't make any noise," he warned. "Or it will be the last thing that you'll ever do."

Emma glared at him and went to scream, but stopped when she saw the knife that he pulled from his pocket. "No noise?" Robert asked.

Tears streaming down her face, Emma nodded.

Emma screamed, bolting upright. She looked at her surroundings; panicking when she didn't recognize what room she was in. Whose bedroom was this? Where was she?

"Breathe," a voice said next to her. Emma jumped and went to hurriedly get out of the bed, but a hand wrapped around her wrist.

"Let go," Emma pleaded. "Robert, please let go."

"I'm not Robert," Regina said, sitting up. "Although I will give you the fact that my name also starts with R."

"Regina," Emma said, sighing in relief. She calmed down as soon as she realized whose room that she was in.

"Hi there," Regina said, smiling gently. Now that Emma was out of her nightmare, Regina let go of her wrist. "Want to talk about it?"

"No," Emma said quickly, getting ready to spring from the bed.

"Emma," Regina said gently. "We've talked to Archie about this. Whenever you have a nightmare, you're supposed to talk about it."

"If Archie knew what happened in the nightmares, I'm sure that he would be more than understanding about why I don't want to talk about it," Emma mumbled.

"I want to help," Regina said. "And I can't help without you letting me in."

"I don't need help," Emma argued.

Regina sighed. "Your nightmares are getting worse. I would say that's a pretty big cry for help."

"I don't want to talk about it," Emma said. Her breathing started to pick up as the memories from her nightmare started to come back.

Regina quickly wrapped her arms around Emma, pulling her close. Emma tensed at first, not yet ready to be touched. But then she remembered that this was Regina, and she immediately felt safe, beginning to calm down.

Once Emma had calmed down, Regina spoke again. "Here are your options. Either talk about it, or fall back asleep."

"That's mean," Emma mumbled.

"If it gets you to talk, then I'll take being mean," Regina said. She squeezed Emma gently, encouraging her to speak.

Emma contemplated for several moments what she wanted to do. Regina tightened her embrace as she felt Emma tense, as if getting ready to run.

The panic in Emma was coming back full-force, filling every part of her being. The nightmare itself was terrifying, but telling Regina about it could ruin everything. Regina would see how broken she was and want to leave her.

"I have to go," Emma gasped out. She broke out of Regina's embrace and went to run from the room. Just as she was about to leave, she hit a wall. Not an actual wall, a magic wall.

Feeling the room closing in on her, Emma ran to the window. She tried to pull it open, but it was magically sealed shut. "No no no," Emma muttered. She went to walk back towards the door, but was stopped by Regina, who grabbed her hand and pulled her back towards their bed.

"Talk to me," Regina commanded gently. "And I'll take down the barrier surrounding this room."

"Or I could take it down myself," Emma said.

Regina shook her head. "Your magic is too unstable right now. You would do more harm than good."

"I don't want to talk about it," Emma said. "You'll think less of me if I tell you."

"Don't tell me what my reaction will be," Regina scolded. "Just tell me. I guarantee that it will make you feel better."

Emma bit her lip and looked down at her hands. She couldn't look Regina in the eyes when she told her. "One of my foster fathers raped me."

Regina gasped. She had suspected that this had been the case, but hearing Emma say it herself made it much more real. "Robert?"

Emma shuddered at the name. "Yeah. But he was drunk, so that was probably why."

"That's no excuse," Regina said. "Did he ever do it again after the first time."

"No," Emma said. "He was so ashamed that he sent me back to my social worker the next day."

"Good," Regina said.

Emma looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean, 'good'?"

"Isn't that a good thing?" Regina asked. "You weren't around him anymore."

"He didn't have to feel ashamed about it," Emma said softly. "He was drunk, and I could have fought harder."

"Stop right there," Regina said strongly. "Don't you dare go blaming yourself for what he did. He was drunk and raped a girl who he was supposed to care for like a daughter. That is in no way your fault."

"But I-"

"Nope," Regina said, cutting her off. "But nothing. If you continue blaming yourself, this will haunt you for the rest of your life."

"How would you know?" Emma said bitterly.

"Because I blamed myself too," Regina said softly.

Emma looked at her with wide eyes. "You-you were-"

Regina just nodded. "But that's a conversation for another time. What matters right now is that you stop blaming yourself. Okay?"

Emma blinked as tears started to blur her vision. Now that she had calmed down, she was starting to become emotionally exhausted. "I don't know how to."

Regina held open her arms and Emma leaned into her embrace. "We'll work through it together. We've beaten physical demons before. Now we'll beat the mental ones."

Well that was an emotional chapter. I sometimes surprise myself with the chapters that I write. I promise to write a really cute and fluffy one tomorrow to make up for this :)