And here's chapter 8, just one day after 7! Seriously though guys, I poured my heart into this for you, leave reviews? They motivate me! If I feel motivated enough, I'll get another one up tomorrow! This one was a really emotional and dramatic chapter so be ready!
Thanks guys!
Chapter Warning: Abuse and slight suicidal thoughts
She's tired and her head hurts (along with her heart, a fact she's pretending not to notice), which is the only logical excuse she can surmise for why she was dumb enough to leave the Nolan residence.
The wind is whipping around her, throwing soft flurries of snow all over her body. While she's definitely grateful to have a jacket this time around, she knows it's not enough to keep her comfortable in this weather for long. Emma makes it to the end of the block when she realizes there really isn't anywhere left for her to go. All her friends are behind her in the cozy home and the only other place she can legally go is back to her foster father's home, which isn't preferable.
For a moment, Emma considers turning around and going back, simply claiming she needed some fresh air to calm herself down, but her mind quickly dismisses the idea. She would only be putting off the inevitable. She never belonged there with them and going back now only meant setting herself up for more pain.
And facing Killian.
Which she was so not doing.
With any luck, Phil would be passed out on the couch, drunker than usual as he rings in the New Year.
At least she was praying he was.
Her feet start trudging through the snow again as she makes her way towards her foster home across town. She passes large crowds on the sidewalks, smiling and cheering in the New Year. She manages to glide through town unnoticed, people too preoccupied with their merriment and celebrating to notice a small girl on her own.
By the time she walks up the steps of the crumbling home, her toes are frozen and her clothes are wet from the onslaught of snow.
Despite her hurry to get to warmth, she pauses on the front porch, trying to decide her next move. How does she explain her absence? How does she walk back in there after weeks and not expect him to make a big deal of it?
Don't. Go back. Go home.
No. She didn't have a home. Killian had lied to her. She let him in, she trusted him, she had been falling in love and now, now she learns he was just like everyone else. And what's worse, was the fact that while her friends hadn't condoned it, they forgave it, immediately. The comforted him and supported him as though he was the victim in this mess.
She felt used, she felt stupid, she felt angry.
Her broken heart wouldn't allow her to turn around.
Her pride compelled her forward to face whatever Phil had to offer.
Physical pain she could deal with. Physical pain was manageable.
Facing the facts of another betrayal, another abandonment, was not.
His back is towards her as he rests in his recliner, facing the television, which is muted, but flashing as the screen plays the vicarious scenes of Manhattan in celebration.
She can't tell from this angle if he's conscious or not, but she hopes at the very least he is drunk enough to not have heard the front door. If she could just sneak the few feet to the staircase without being heard, she could -
"Now where do you think you're off to?" His gruff voice is calm and steady, causing her body to tense as she knows what's coming.
He's worse when he's calm. When he's hysterical, he often gets sloppy and weak, too focused on his anger to think or punch straight.
But now, he's calm and calculative. He's planned this. He's not drunk, he's not too angry to focus on beating her properly, he's sober.
And pissed as hell.
He rises from the recliner and turns toward her. His eyes are narrowed and cold as he sizes her up, trying to decide just how he wants to make her suffer tonight.
She loosens herself up, trying to play it off in a last ditch effort to avoid being beaten.
"Just upstairs," She shrugs.
He lets out a dark laugh, taking a few steps closer to her, "And you think you can just come back and act like nothing happened after weeks of what, sleeping around?"
"I just wanted to give you some peace without having to deal with me for a bit. I was trying to-"
His arm shoots out like a viper, wrapping itself around her hair and yanking, his fingers at her roots.
"Don't lie to me!" He spits.
"I'm not I swear!" She pleads.
He tears her head downward, then pulls his hand out of her hair, reeling it back to throw a punch.
It hurts, but instead of accepting it like she normally does, she lets out a wailing scream on the hopes that someone would hear.
Her scream is accentuated by the flashing of fireworks in the sky as the world cheers on, celebrating. Her cry for help is lost in the thousands of happy screams from partiers. No one's coming to her aid tonight.
He's by her side again, pulling her up by her collar just enough to throw another punch or two.
"They took away my license! Did you know that? Damn social work bitch showed up while I was having a drink and threw a fit that I
didn't know where you were!"
Emma begins to crawl, hoping to make it to the door while he's distracted in his rant.
She has no such luck. He pivots around and swiftly kicks her, sending her toppling to her side. And then he's kicking again, and kicking, and she cries as she hears the snap of a rib or two and she knows there is probably some internal trauma as well.
And just as she begins to pray for him to end it- one way or another - he's lifting her up by throat, cutting off her windpipe. Her visions turns hazy for a moment before he launches her backwards towards the ground. There's a split second where she can tell exactly where her head will hit by the direction she's headed, but there is no way to do anything now.
She feels the pain in the back of her head as it rams the coffee table and then there's nothing.
When Emma wakes up again she's groggy to say the least, but she manages to note that she is no longer on the floor of the living room. In fact, she's pretty sure Phil propped her up in the closet in the front hall.
Her body aches and she can feel the black eye and split lip on her face, along with the busted ribs, the damage to her head, and whatever other internal injuries she has.
With enough effort, she manages to pull herself onto her knees so she can peek out between the shutter panels of closet door to survey her surroundings.
It's bright enough out, letting her know that it's probably mid afternoon, which means Phil is most likely at work by now. With the house empty, she knows she should be safe enough leaving the closet.
Treat your injuries the best you can, get what you need, and get out.
It was time to get out of this house and out of this godforsaken town.
She drags herself to the bathroom and runs a cool cloth under the water before wiping the blood from her busted lip off her face. Her hand gently runs across the back of her head and she knows the table broke the skin from the dried blood she feels there.
No good. She'll stick out too much if she runs around with her hair coated in blood.
She strips down and takes a quick but painful shower, trying to appreciate it as she realizes that she's not sure when she'll get another.
She scrubs off the dirt, grime, and blood, washes her hair, and then exits the shower.
By some miracle, she finds some bandaids, and while she could definitely do better, it's all she has for the cut on her head at the moment. Careful to avoid as much hair as possible, she puts it over the cut and lays her hair over it, hoping it would be enough that no one would notice.
She dries her hair as best she can, knowing she'll freeze if she takes her wet hair out into the cold, but there isn't much she can do for it. Phil doesn't own a hairdryer.
She throws her clothes from last night back on, her black leggings and a cute sweater, wishing she had thought to wear something a little warmer but it's too late. She would have to settle for stealing from Phil.
She leaves the bathroom and finds her jacket, quickly throwing it on. Her ribs protest the action, but she suffers though before searching thought Phil's supply of winter attire. In the end she grabs one of his warmer jackets, a hat, and a pair of old gloves. She knows she looks homeless, but at this point she pretty much is, and beggars can't be choosers.
Luckily, she also finds her phone in the closet, turned off. She knows she probably has messages, but she leaves it off to conserve the power, knowing she won't be able to charge it again. Emergency calls only from here on out.
Not that she would have anyone to call.
She raids his kitchen, throwing some snack bars, water bottles (surprisingly), and Phil's lighter into her bag before checking the time on the oven.
4:47 PM.
Phil would be out of work in just a few minutes and she needed to be long gone.
(Her mind also noted that Killian would be leaving for school in less than 48 hours but she chose to ignore that).
With her bag packed and winter gear on, rips the front door open and heads out into the cold and with any luck, a new life.
"I'm sorry Killian but you really have to get on the road now."
His mother is right. He know she is. The weather is terrible, and if he wants even the slightest chance of making it back to school alive, he needs to be leaving before it gets worse.
But somehow he still can't bring himself to get in his car. He's all packed up, he's said goodbye to his friends with a promise, a real one this time, that he'll be visiting soon and calling more often. All his loose ends are tied up.
Except one.
No one has seen or heard from Emma since the incident and he was going out of his mind with worry.
Not only had he wanted to talk things through with her before he went back to school and at least explain his side, but now he was terrified of what had happened.
The only other place Emma could have gone was her foster home and Killian was sure that the devil himself wouldn't be too pleased to see her after her disappearing act. He was going out of his mind with worry.
What if Phil beat her again? What if he went too far and she was in serious danger?
Plus, it wasn't even like he could check on her. No one knew where her foster home even was. Apparently none of them had been over there and she had never told them. To top it all off, her phone was turned off, which he had never known her to do.
Everyone kept telling him that she would be fine, that she knew how to handle Phil, and probably just wanted some space for a bit, but Killian could tell even they were worried, David especially.
But Killian couldn't explain it he just - he just knew something was wrong. Something more than Milah's appearance.
"She'll turn up, she always does." Ruth soothed.
"If she shows up at the house-"
"You'll be the first call I make when she does." She assures him.
"Ahem!" David clears his throat, his intent clear.
Ruth looks at him for a moment before shaking her head, "Fine, you'll be the second call I make, Killian."
He wants to stall. Find some reason why he can't get into his car and drive away. Why he can't just go back to school and act normal and pretend like nothing has happened, like Emma wasn't missing.
He just wants to go back. Back to the beginning and do it all over. Break up with Milah immediately, tell Emma how he feels sooner, kiss her on New Year's. He flashes back to that first moment he saw her, green eyes wide as she took in his baseball bat, golden hair falling in curled tresses around her face, her face flushed.
"Emma Swan. I'm David's friend."
He can't get into his car and drive away. He can't be another person to give up on her, to leave her.
"She's been abandoned by everyone and it's caused her a lot of scars."
If he goes back to school now is that what he'll be to her? Just another set of scars that have yet to heal? Another abandonment to add to her list?
He stares down the road, hoping that if he just stares long enough or concentrates hard enough, she'll come around the corner.
"I'm willing to take a leap of faith. With you, I mean."
But she doesn't.
"I'll be back next weekend."
Ruth nods with understanding. She moves and opens the driver's side door, "In you get, you've got a long drive."
Killian wraps his arms around his brother, "Find her, Dave."
"I will," He promises.
He moves to hug his mother and then there's nothing left. Nothing left to do, nothing left to keep him here, and he's climbing in his car and pulling out of his drive.
He looks back in the rear-view mirror every few seconds with one last shred of desperate hope that she'll appear, until his car rounds the corner and he can't see the house anymore.
He looks for her down every street he passes. He glances at the faces of the every passerby on the sidewalk.
He looks down at his hand, cradling the compass she had given him for Christmas.
"This is to help you find your way back to us, you know, after you go back to school."
It's not until he finally reaches the "Welcome to Storybrooke" sign and the town fades from his view that he gives up, knowing there is nothing left he can do.
Today at least.
"I'll always find you, Emma."
She's probably dying she guesses.
Really it's a lot less dramatic than she thought it would be. She actually feels a little cheated.
She ran out of food and water bottles yesterday, so she could now add starving and thirsty to the list of reasons she was going to die sitting against the wall of this alleyway.
In all honesty winter probably wasn't the best season to run away in.
Her injuries haven't healed yet and in fact, she's probably only made them worse. The cold and lack of nutrition obviously isn't doing anything for them.
She definitely has a really bad cold and is probably developing pneumonia, if she hasn't already. Hypothermia wasn't out of the question, she's been sitting in the cold and snow for two or three days now.
She's freezing, starving, thirsty, sick, and beat up.
That means she's gonna die, right?
It wouldn't be any great loss. Sure, David and everyone would probably be sad for a minute, but they would move on. College is coming next year and he'll probably marry Mary Margaret in no time and there will be parties and she'd become a memory.
So you're just going to chose to die then? Because you don't want to ask for help?
No. Yes. Maybe?
Were her walls really so high that she would rather die than let anyone in? Than let anyone see her weak? Rather than need anyone?
She couldn't make it through another heartbreak though, another abandonment.
They didn't abandon you, you abandoned them.
No, she had done them a favor, taken herself out of the equation so they could be happy with Killian.
But for a second, she imagined going back. She pictured David hugging her and getting angry over what Phil had done. Ruth healing her injuries, Mary Margaret making her hot cocoa with cinnamon and rubbing her back. Ruby and Regina ready to commit murder. Graham offering words of comfort, Jefferson and August trying to lighten the mood with jokes, and Killian just holding her.
Her heart ached.
She wanted to go back.
She wanted to go home.
And so she cried. Sitting on the frozen ground of an alleyway, covered in injuries, sick, starving, cold, and nearly dead, she cried because she was homesick.
Perhaps Emma Swan had a home after all.
It was now or never. One path or another. She could finally take down her walls and let people in and take the chance she could get hurt again, or she could just give up.
No.
She was Emma Swan. She wasn't going to give up and just lay in the street and die.
She was going to get her family back.
She pulled out the phone and made her one emergency call, calling for the one person she needed now more than anything.
The voice answered after one ring, frantic and worried, calling her name.
She let out a sob, "David?"
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