HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEGAN! So I decided to do something special for you since this is technically your first birthday that I've been friends with you so, with a lot of help from some friends, we wrote you a bunch of mini fics to one shots to ficlets on a whole range of your favorite Once characters. Have an absolutely fantastic, amazing, awesome, hilarious magical birthday you lovely lady. You absolutely deserve it you Emma Swan you ;) Hope you like them!
22. In a showdown with Gold and Regina, Charming is permanently blinded. Snow, Emma, Henry and the whole town have to help him recover.
Written by: Saskia
"Charming? Can you hear me?" He knows that voice. He could point it out in any crowd but all he sees is darkness and a small sliver of light. His wife sits at his bedside, trying to hold in any tears she has left. She is completely caked in dirt with her hair sticking up at ends and her clothes frayed. The remnants of a battle hard fought are not lost on her, and sadly will never be lost on Charming.
One minute, Emma was standing next to her father, both wielding swords with wild looks in their eyes. The next, Emma sat sobbing while clutching her father close to her body. He was clearly in pain while attempting to reach his eyes but stopping short. Emma knew something was wrong as Charming grasped for her hair, her clothes, anything he could hold onto: "Emma, is that you?" he asked, his voice raspy and unsure. Emma could not breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't speak. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as she kept hold on her father's body: "It's gonna be okay Dad. You're going to be okay," Emma whispered but her voice quaked while she spoke. Snow was at their sides in an instant with tears already being shed down her cheeks. Emma could hear the sirens getting louder and her head spun as if she was on some sort of sickening carnival ride. But nothing would send her head spinning more then Dr. Whale's prognosis a few minutes later: "I'm sorry but your father, he's been blinded. He will never recover." Snow collapsed to the ground as the doctor delivered the news and Emma helped her mother to a corridor wall where she had to stay strong for them both. Snow held her face in her hands, tears streaking her sweater and Emma wrapped her arms around her mother-burying her face into the itchy wool as if she was a child. But she could not be the child. Not anymore. After this battle, Emma was going to have to grow up all over again. Her parents had always been the over protective, but loving type through the trials and tribulations of the post curse Storybrooke town. And now, her father needed her more then ever.
Stepping back into the room was a shock to both the woman as they saw Charming for the first time since the battle. His face was wrapped mostly in bandages, save for one spot right next to his mouth. And this is where Snow touches first. She's done this in intimate moments, touching the scar she left on him the day she stole much more then his jewelry. Charming can sense this and though he can no longer understand what is truly playing out in front of him, he reaches for Snow's hand. She melts at his touch, drawing in what little breath she had still in her lungs after the shock of entering the room. She squeezes his hand once as Emma crosses over to his other side. She won't let tears fall. Not here, that is for when they are safely in the apartment and she can clutch the wool blanket that often gives her the most salvation when she needs it. The wool blanket that has always been the material to catch her tears from when she was a child in a foster home to now as an adult. She snaps back as she reaches for her father's hand and he somehow knows that she's crying. He reaches up and with some difficulty is able to dry her tears. She holds his hand as Dr. Whale explains what will happen from here on. It will take at least a week in hospital before he needs to rehabilitate with his family. Henry has entered now, and Emma slowly leads him to Charming.
"Grandpa?" he asks in a low voice, cracking slightly. Charming reaches for him and Henry comes closer so that he can ruffle his hair. And for an hour or more, this is where they stay, sitting by Charming's bedside when he needs his family most.
A week later, Charming is finally discharged and he has become more accustomed to this new way of life. Emma has taken on the role of supporting her father with such grace that it brings tears to Snow's eyes. Snow offers a steadying arm and Charming finally steps out of the hospital bed that has practically kept him chained down. To the entire town's credit, they all show up down the street and this strikes Emma. She can tell her parents were once great rulers and they still are. Even if all Snow can do is keep her eyes on her husband, being overly careful with her hand on his back and whispering soothing words to her husband, who is simply smiling in the direction of the applause that supports him as he steps one foot in front of the other with his new white cane. When they reach the apartment, all three of the other Charmings help him upstairs and when he reaches the door, he makes tears fall onto everyone's cheeks as he whispers: "Home Sweet Home." Emma smiles as she watches her mother guide her father to the couch and she begins to make hot chocolate for everyone. Henry looks sadly over at the couple on the couch, Snow picking up objects and spelling them out for her husband on his hand. Emma takes his hand and squeezes, casting a reassuring look at her son.
"Mom? Will Grandpa ever be okay?" Henry asks and though he is trying to hold back tears, one slowly slips from his eye. Emma catches it with her thumb and in return offers him a small smile and a mug filled with hot chocolate.
"So long as you support him Henry, your grandpa will be just fine. You just need to remember that even if we're blind or hard of hearing or lost, one way or another we will always find each other, I can promise you that," that is all Henry needs to hear as he throws his arm around her. He does not break down though, not like Emma has for the past little while.
She has never broken down in front of Henry or Snow, who spent much of the last week at the hospital. But when Henry was being babysat by Granny, Emma allowed herself to cry while clutching her blanket. Her blanket has always made her feel both warm, safe and truly at home. She has also done some of her best thinking while holding that blanket. She thinks of her father and how hurt and lost he must feel. That is why Emma will do everything in her power to make him feel whole again. She knows what sort of pain he has gone through. She has never been blinded, no, but she has been through that pain and the loss. It came for her when she was younger and she would be sitting by herself-looking out the window and just waiting for someone. Someone to whisk her away, like a fairy godmother and place her where she would finally just be loved. It came for her again when she was older, sensing a strange pull towards a red leather jacket that she thought cost too much at the time but later looked on with hope because she thought perhaps this was a sign that her parents, wherever they were, also wore leather often and she had inherited the trait. But later she looked at herself disgusted in the mirror. Sure, the people who abandoned her on the side of the road had some sort of a 'connection' with her. She had read the newspaper until she could not read it anymore, instead putting it into a box where she held other items that housed any information of her past. But her baby blanket was special. She knew it was odd to keep an object like that at hand, but as she grew older she liked to reach out and just know it was by her bedside. The blanket was there to catch every tear or every sob that would rack her body upon thinking of all the shit she had been through. It was funny because these tears were from her nightmares and most of her awful childhood and yet she still clung to the one thing that connected her to her past and her true parents.
Setting the mugs of hot chocolate down on the table; she takes the other seat next to her father. Though her mother is trying to hide it, she can see the bags under her eyes and so she sends Snow off to bed-reassuring her that everything will be fine. Snow hesitates but drags her weary body off to bed before Emma has to tell her again. Emma then slowly guides the spoon of hot chocolate to her father's mouth and smiles as he smiles upon tasting the spicy under current of the cinnamon mixed with the hot chocolate. She then helps him finish the rest and helps him to bed, smiling as her mother mouths, "Thank You." Emma just smiles but places a kiss on her mother's cheek before going up to her own bedroom and before turning out the lights, allows herself just 5 seconds to cry onto the carefully scripted "Emma" on her blanket.
Over the next several months, Charming slowly makes progress with the help of the entire town. Henry and his class teach him how to read by using braille code, Granny and Red help him to learn how to eat with a renewed independence and how to walk, Jiminy, bless his soul, is there for the Prince whenever he needs to talk, and Snow and Emma simply love him through it all and support him as he embarks toward independence.
On the 6 month anniversary of the diagnosis of the rest of his life, Snow and Charming lie in bed and talk while the moon light basks the two in a comfortable glow. Snow intertwines their fingers and Charming smiles at the way that, through it all, they are one thing that will never change. Just like their fingers, their lives are forever intertwined.
"Snow?" Charming whispers into the darkness, and Snow props herself up on her hand as she traces the scar on his chin with the other.
"Yes Charming?" Snow answers, puzzled as to what he sounds so apprehensive about.
"It's our anniversary today," he answers and Snow continues to be silent and non-understanding. "Today is the anniversary of the battle yes," Snow answers, willing herself not to cry and cursing how the event can still render her emotional.
"No, it's the anniversary of the first day that I met you," Charming answers back sweetly, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. Snow's heart melts as she remembers the robbery, the river, the trolls, the bridge, the looks exchanged, the ring and especially the look he gave her when she had the ring on. It was one that she had never seen before, and could not quite put her finger on. There had been hope in his eyes and, (as she decided later) there was also love. An immense love which Snow knew was coming from both their hearts as they parted. And it was there, on that path as she watched him walk away with that emerald stoned ring, that she knew he had walked away with her heart too.
She listens and chimes in when necessary, adding in her own witty remarks and "Is that so?"'s. And when it comes time to tell the part where they both leave down the path it is Snow who describes what she remembers best about the scene and the tear that slips from Charming's cheek is so genuine that she cannot help but kiss his lips when it lands there. Though much has changed, Charming is happy to know that above all Snow never will. Sure as her namesake flutters down from the sky every winter, Charming knows that her, Emma and Henry are now the only constants in his life that will forever be un changing now. So as they whisper good night, Charming adds in a word charged with even more meaning than it used to hold: "Always."
Always is the only word that will describe Snow and Charming because of its hold on the past, the present and all their hopes and dreams for the future.