Disclaimer: Soooo I'm getting really sick of finding clever ways to tell you that I don't own Once. By now you should really know that. So for the last time, ever, I. Do. Not. Own. Once. Upon. A. Time. End of story, goodbye, the end.

Chapter 6

Whenever Emma closed her eyes, all she was able to see was the hurt look Graham had given her when she told him that she felt nothing for him. Why was this happening?

It didn't help that Graham was always over at the station. Because Emma had taken over his old job as sheriff, he now helped Ruby, who'd formed a committee to help Storybrooke citizens locate missing loved ones, sort out their jobs, etc. As a result, he was always at the station, filing missing people reports and stuff like that. Every time Emma saw him, she kept her eyes down and spoke to him as little as possible. However, he didn't seem to get the message. He constantly tried to talk to her, to continue the flirty banter that they'd shared when he was sheriff. It was as if he was completely disregarding what she'd told him at Granny's. It was something Emma just didn't get. In the past, men she broke up with simply disappeared from her life. They didn't stick around and try to win her back. But Graham? He was the exact opposite. Always inviting her out to lunch and trying to make conversation, even if it was just about the weather.

Another thing that bugged her were Mary Margaret and David's (ok, she still couldn't think of them as Snow and James, much less her parents!) attempts at family bonding. Henry was all for it, probably because he'd know for ages about the curse. But for Emma, this was just plain awkward.

"Emma? Would you like to join us for breakfast?" Mary Margaret asked one morning. She was standing at the stove, frying eggs while Henry was already on his way to school and David seated at the table reading the paper. Emma was on her way out, pulling on her coat and sheriff's badge as she reached for her keys on the kitchen counter. For the last two weeks, she had been trying to avoid her parents as much as possible.

"No, I'm late." She answered brusquely. Of course, she wasn't actually late, but it was a handy excuse she'd been using for a while.

"I'm sure all those reports and investigations could wait an hour." Mary Margaret said with a smile that didn't leave much room for negotiation. She nudged Emma towards the table. "Sit. A nice breakfast with your family wouldn't hurt."

Ugh. Emma cringed inwardly at the word family. It was the last word she'd use to describe Mary Margaret and David.

Emma sat down slowly, perched on the edge of the chair. She'd left her coat on, ready to leave at any moment. David looked up and smiled at her awkwardly.

"Morning." He said.

Emma merely nodded. She was in no mood for forced pleasantries.

"Really cold weather we're having." He commented nervously.

Emma nodded again, causing David to hide behind his newspaper. She looked around, hoping for a way out of this. She was just about to fake an urgent call from the station when Mary Margaret set a plate full of scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast in front her, along with a mug of hot chocolate. Damn. All her favorites. Now she'd look like an ungrateful bitch if she left.

"Here you go. Now eat up while it's still hot." Her mother said as she sat down. Emma rolled her eyes at Mary Margaret's attempts at sounding like a mother. It was beyond ridiculous.

"So, tell us Emma, what did you do before you came here?" Mary Margaret asked as she sipped her coffee.

"Uh, I was a bail bondsman." Emma said with a heavy load of duh in her voice. "I already told you that before."

"Oh. Right." Her roommate blushed.

There was an awkward silence.

Suddenly, Mary Margaret couldn't take it anymore. She slammed down her fork. Emma looked up, alarmed while David put down the paper.

"We need to talk." Her mother said.

Here we go. Emma thought. They were gonna tell her all about how they loved her, only sent her away to give her the best chance possible, etc. All this shit she already knew and didn't want to hear. It hurt too much.

"What about?" Emma asked, though she already knew.

"We're finally together, something I know you've been wanting for ages, because you told me, er Mary Margaret, whatever." Her roommate stumbled over her multiple identities. Emma winced inwardly at this reference to their former friendship.

"So?"

"So, as a mother, I can sense that you're not all that happy about it. Why?" Snow/Mary Margaret stared at her daughter, intrigued.

"You can tell us. We won't be mad." James/David added, trying to sound like a sympathetic father. Maybe it would work on other people, but for her, it just sounded stupid.

Suddenly, Emma felt like the room was spinning. The breakfast she'd eaten churned violently in her stomach, threatening to come back up. There was no way in hell she was gonna talk to them. They'd officially known each other as family for such a short time. They had no right to be acting like parents.

Emma pushed back her chair. "Thanks for breakfast." She said as she rushed out the door

And so it went on like this for the next several weeks. Mary Margaret and David tried multiple times to get to know their daughter, while Emma became very skilled at avoiding them and their awkward questions. Each day, she grew more and more miserable, as she was forced to spend long hours at the station just to steer clear of her parents.

She also had to avoid Graham, which was no easy feat. As each day passed, he became more and more determined to win her back. One day, he brought even had flowers delivered to her. It was sweet, really, but Emma knew from experience that the sweetest men would often turn to be the cruelest too.

So, the person she spent the most time with now was Henry, for he was the one thing that hadn't changed. While everything in her life in Storybrooke had pretty much flip flopped after the curse had broken (even Regina hadn't bothered her in a while; no one had really seen her after the curse was broken and she sure didn't put up a fight about Henry), Henry was the one constant.

"Why aren't you home anymore?" Henry asked one day as she was driving him to school, which she used as an excuse to avoid breakfast with Mary Margaret and David.

"What do you mean, kid?" Emma murmured as she kept her eyes on the road. She of course knew exactly what Henry was talking about.

"You know what I mean." He answered. "You never stay for breakfast and you're never home for dinner. There can't be that much work to do every day."

Emma ignored him.

"You aren't just trying to avoid your parents, are you?" He asked, suddenly concerned. "Are you mad at them for sending you away? They were just trying to…"

"Give me my best change, I know." She finished. It was a phrase she'd heard too many times, something Mary Margaret and David had tried to explain to her before but she'd merely brushed them off, not wanting to hear it.

"Yeah. So why are you ignoring them? They're trying their best, you know." He fiddled with his backpack. "To get to know you."

"I know." She said absently.

"It wasn't their fault. It was the evil queen's curse that caused this."

Emma sighed. She didn't need to hear this again. "I know, Henry."

"Then why don't you come home for once? Try and actually talk to them. They're your parents. They're what you've been looking for your whole life. We can be a family together. Me, you, and your parents."

Suddenly, something in Emma shifted. The one thing she was counting on, the one sane thing in this whole mess, was driving her crazy. She drove rapidly the rest of the way to Henry's school. Screw the speed limits. She was the sheriff. What was she going to do, give herself a ticket?

Henry opened the door to her yellow bug. "Thanks for the ride." He turned to go, but then paused. "At least give them a chance. They love you, you know."

Because she'd left so quickly she had no time to grab breakfast, so she drove to Granny's to pick up something before heading to the station. She stepped inside the now very familiar diner, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of Storybrooke citizens chatting happily and eating their breakfasts. At least this place was unchanged by the aftermaths of the curse.

Oops. Spoke too soon. She thought, annoyed. The moment she walked inside, she could feel everyone's stares and hear the hushed whispers.

"Gave her up when she was a baby." Somebody hissed.

"Put her through wardrobe."

"Don't they love her?"

"Did it…save everyone."

"No wonder…always alone."

The whispers came faster and faster, making Emma's head spin. Suddenly, Granny's seemed unbearable. Without bothering to pick up her food, she strode out quickly and back into her car.

Emma put her head in her hands. She was so, so, so sick of this. All of the looks, the whispers, and the gossip. In a roundabout way, she'd gotten everything she'd ever wanted. A family. But not in the way she'd imagined. Instead of a wonderful, heartfelt reunion, she'd found out that her parents were fairy tale characters. FAIRY TALE CHARACTERS! And about her age. It was something that was truly unbelievable.

There was just no way she could deal with that. She'd lived for 28 years without parents, so she could live a thousand more without them. As for Henry, yes, she'd let him in after a while. But he was different. He didn't come with the constant reminder that she'd been abandoned, all because her parents had wanted to save her from an evil queen's curse. Evil queens. Curses. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't wrap her head around this new reality. This "new normal". While everyone else in Storybrooke (even Henry) had seemingly adapted fairly well to the aftermaths of the curse, she obviously hadn't.

Just the way everyone looked at her gave her the creeps. Yes, they'd been overly grateful about her breaking the curse (which she still didn't quite get how she'd done that), but underneath all that, they looked and treated her like she was an alien. Which, in a way, she was. She wasn't from their world. She didn't know about magic or anything from fairy tale world. She was an outsider, even in her family. Something she'd been all her life. Emma laughed at the irony of this. Here she was, back with the people that she should've felt like she belonged with more than anything, and yet she couldn't feel more isolated.

Which was exactly why she was leaving, going back to Boston. At least there, she was supposed to be a loner. It was how she'd established herself among her colleagues and neighbors. And there, she wouldn't have to face the people that had abandoned a helpless infant all in the name of saving others.