Chapter 5: What I Was

Emma stood in Henry's doorway. He was asleep and the blue dream catcher hung on his bed post. She knew she was cheating by swapping dream catchers. After visiting Gold she had gone out of her way to find a new one, one that wasn't haunted, one that could belong to Henry with no strings attached.

Though Henry had all ready taken a liking to the yellow one she had previously shared with him, he accepted his mom's reasoning that the nightmares weren't escaping the way they were supposed to even if it seemed a bit strange but this was Storybrooke so nothing was strange anymore and Henry always had accepted a lot of the outlandish more than most so he was okay with it.

"Well Henry's out," Emma said to her parents as she walked into the living room where her parents were sitting together on the couch. "It's the first time he's gone to sleep without any trouble."

"That's good," said Mary Margaret. "The dream catcher you got him was a smart idea."

Emma took a seat on one of the lone sofa couches. "I'm just glad it seems to help him."

"But it's not helping you is it," Mary Margaret asked. Emma quickly looked up and Mary Margaret shrugged as she continued. "I heard the way your voice softened in Gold's shop a few days ago when he pulled it out."

Emma looked down feeling embarrassed. "Guess I haven't been as subtle about it have I?"

"Either that or we just know you too well," Mary Margaret said with a smile.

Emma let out a small smile of her own, "Yeah I guess."

Mary Margaret looked at her husband and he looked at their daughter.

"Talk to us Emma," said David. "You've been all over the place today, what's going on?"

"There's not much to talk about. It was just a bad dream. Dreams pass in time right, at least they're supposed to. I don't know why this one keeps eating me up."

"Sure you do," Mary Margaret said with a sympathetic smile. "If you didn't you wouldn't be as bothered."

Emma shrugged her shoulders and moved her head slightly trying to fight off her memories and the tears she was afraid would trickle down.

"I haven't had this particular nightmare in nine years. The first time was during two month into…"

Emma wasn't sure if she could do this. She stood up and walked to the window that was across from her and near the sofa that her parents occupied. Emma crossed her arms and looked into the darkness.

"You don't know me. You don't know what I was before Storybrooke," Emma said repeating the words that she had said to her parents several days ago. The words rang true now as they did when she had first said them.

"Then help us get to know you Emma," said Mary Margaret.

Emma sighed. It wasn't that they didn't just know her. For years it had always been a fear that if she ever found her biological parents, what would they think? Would they judge her for the life she led, would they see her differently if they knew the truth? Would it change the relationship in the short time they got to know each other? And worse, despite those fears she'd had over the years would it bother them that she hadn't tried to change because of those fears just in case she found them early on in life?

There were no easy answers here so Emma took a deep breath. "I wasn't exactly perfect daughter material. I was bounced around from foster home to foster home, always getting into some form of trouble. By the time I was seventeen my luck ran out."

"The article Sidney Glass wrote," David said pointing it out.

"Sidney needs to get his facts straight," Emma said sourly. "He did get a couple things right. I did get sent to jail and Henry was born there but the rest of the details were lies. I wasn't visiting friends from some foster family.

I was out of the system by then, doing a favor for…someone. I got caught and the person I was with got away clean. Two months later the nightmare started and they didn't stop until after I got out. I was able to pick up a new dream catcher and that trapped the nightmares for a while. I used it for a year and a half before deciding I didn't need it anymore."

Emma turned and looked at her parents. "I'm not proud of who I was back that and if you had known me at that time you wouldn't have been either. I was pretty messed up and even now I struggle with that every day."

Mary Margaret looked at her daughter and stood up from where she was sitting. She walked over and placed her hands on Emma's crossed arms.

"You don't have to struggle with it alone," she said to her.

Emma let out a small smile but as quickly as it had come it was gone. "There's still a lot about me you don't know. I know you say that it's not different in regards to all of us figuring out the parent thing but it is."

Mary Margaret looked at Emma wondering where her daughter was going with this.

Emma pulled back and walked away, distancing herself a little. She was on the verge of admitting what she had always been afraid to since Henry first walked back into her life, since she first realized that she would stay in Storyrbooke.

"It's different," said Emma. "You and David at least have each other." Emma looked down, her arms still crossed. "I never wanted to be a single mother," she said confessing what she had felt all the years since she first found out she was pregnant.

"When I thought about starting a family I always thought it would be with…" Emma shook her head, "And not the way that it turned out. I know Regina was a single mother for ten years," she said looking up, "but that doesn't stop me for placing the blame on the life I could have had, the life that we… I had planned for."

Mary Margaret took a step forward and embraced Emma. Emma in turn held on for dear life. She felt so vulnerable right now and was grateful to have her mother to lean on.

"Life is anything but the way we plan," Mary Margaret said as she soothed her daughter, "but can do this Emma. You're doing such a great job all ready Emma."

Emma pulled away and looked at her mother with sad eyes. "It's not enough. And as much as I hate what he…what happened to me….I sometimes think that maybe lying to Henry wasn't the best idea, not when I'm so easily reminded of my past."

Mary Margaret looked at her daughter wondering what it was she was talking about.

Emma shook her head, thanked her parents for listening and went to her room. It had been a long night, a long day, and would continue to be a long evening.

David stood up and wrapped his arms around his wife. There was still so much they didn't know, still so much that Emma was keeping from them. From the pieces they gathered, the favor she had done that landed her in jail was clearly more than for a friend that much was obvious by the look in her eyes. Someone had clearly broken Emma and after so many years her heart and her thoughts still seemed to be in pieces.

David held his wife slightly tighter and Snow reciprocated with her own strength, both wishing there was something they could do to help their little girl.

Author's Note: I decided to turn Sidney's newspaper into a partial lie because if you look at a screencap of the article in episode 1x08-'Desperate Souls' and what we know of Emma's past from 2x06-'Tallhassee', there are a few inconsistencies there in regards to the timeline.

The article that Sidney wrote read:

Records show that when she was merely a girl of seventeen, Emma Swan found herself, ironically, on the wrong side of the law. She was visiting friends of her foster parents in the town of (can't make out that word), Massachusetts, it would prove to be a trip that Swan would come to regret. Something that would earn her a juvenile criminal record.