First of all, let me say you all are awesome. Thank you so much for the awesome feedback that you have been leaving. But I just want to say that since this is a story in progress, if you make a suggestion that I like and it fits into the story that I have outlined, I just may use your idea. Secondly, please be warned that this chapter contains some pretty heavy and emotional talk about abuse. I tried to keep it somewhat vague with not too much detail, but it is about abuse and it is emotional. So, just be warned. And Finally, it took me a little longer to write this chapter. It was really hard to put into words. So I haven't really proofed it much. But I wanted to get it posted as soon as possible. I need to walk away from it for a few hours. But I will come back to it and correct it later on. With all of that being said, enjoy chapter 4.

Chapter – 4 Confessions

The car ride from the docks back to the apartment was quick. But it was enough time for me to give David a little bit of background on my relationship with JC. I didn't want to tell him too much because I would only end up repeating the whole thing for my mother. I knew that my father had good intentions for suggesting going back to the loft, but I was starting to kick myself for agreeing. I knew that my mother would bombard us with questions that I wasn't sure that I was ready answer. But as I thought about it, I still had some questions of my own that JC hadn't answered yet; the big one being how in the hell he found Storybrooke.

We pulled into a space in front of the building, JC pulled his car next to the truck, and the three of us climbed the stairs to the landing. "Do you mind staying out here for a minute? I need to go in and prime my mother. She can be a little over the top when it comes to me and my life before Storybrooke."

JC nodded politely as he took off his gloves and hat. Just as I turned the door knob, I looked over to my father who was standing next to JC with his arms crossed. In a quick sweeping motion, I grabbed David's upper arm and dragged him through the door with me, "you're coming with me."

"Hey, so what happened?" my mother asked as soon as she saw us come through the door. She was in the kitchen washing dishes and I knew exactly why she was there. I spotted a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies on the island and I made a beeline for them reaching for one right away. Oh they were still warm and the chips were all gooey.

"We need to talk," I said with a mouthful of cookie. I looked up to my dad then quickly down to the empty stool next to me. He got the message. Reaching for a cookie for himself, he glided his body onto the stool.

My mom shifted her gaze to him and then me as she waved her index finger in our direction, "did you two make up?"

"Yeah, yeah, we're good." I quickly responded. "But here's the thing, that guy that was here this morning was my foster brother when I was sixteen." Quick like a band aid; I just had to blurt it out fast.

"Emma.." My mom started but I waved my hand in the air to stop her.

"He's outside, waiting to come in to talk and neither of you are going to attack him like he's a steak and you haven't eaten for a month." My mother jerked her head back and put her eyebrows together trying to look offended. "Oh don't look at me like that."

"Like what? I have no idea what you are talking about." To my right I heard my father chuckle, earning him an elbow to the side.

"Hey." He reached his hand down to rub the point of impact.

"Come on, guys." Now I was pleading, or whining. Whatever worked in my favor. "I know that you guys are excited to meet someone from my past and learn a little more about my time without you. But I don't know why he is here, and for some reason he was not comfortable talking about it in public; which makes me nervous on its own."

Mary Margaret was the first to speak. "We promise, honey." I looked to David, he nodded in agreement. "Come on, let's get this guy in here and have some hot chocolate with these cookies."

I smiled knowing that they would be on their best behavior. As David prepared the hot chocolate and Mary Margaret followed me to the door, I invited JC into the apartment. "JC, I would like you meet my mother, Mary Margaret." She offered her hand to him take shake, but instead he gave a gentle twist to her arm lifting the back of her hand to his lips for a gentle kiss. As a matter of fact, it almost looked like he gave a little bow as well.

I gave him a sideways look and curled my upper lip. I yanked him to the side out of earshot of my parents "What the hell was that?"

"What was what?"

"That…" I lifted my arms in my mother's direction. "That…what you did with my mother? The whole lips, hand, kiss thing. What the hell was that?"

"What? I greeted your mother." He looked offended, like he thought that what he did was perfectly normal. And maybe it was, in the enchanted forest, but not here; not in this world. Suddenly my eyes widened with realization. He knew. Oh my god, he knew, but how? And how much did he know?

"Are you ok?" I didn't hear him. My mind was reeling. "Emma?"

I snapped out of it when he touched my shoulder. "Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Let's have some cookies and hot chocolate."

I watched him cross the room to the table and interact with my parents throwing some small talk their way about how good the cookies smelled. If I wasn't suspicious of his arrival before, I certainly was now. I was going to have to get to the bottom of this. I felt my phone buzz which pulled me out of my reverie. Damn weather alert, I could only deal with one snow storm at a time, and the white stuff that was starting to fall from the sky was not on the top of the list.

"Emma, are you going to join us?" I looked in the direction of my father's voice and nodded my head. I took the seat at the table that was opposite of my mother. Oh, wherever shall we begin.

"So, JC…" Oh great, here we go. Mary Margaret had started things off. "You knew Emma when she was…?" She left a pause to allow him to answer.

"Sixteen." He took a small bite of a cookie and chased it with a sip of hot chocolate. "Which I think, was the last time that I had cinnamon on my hot chocolate."

"Oh, gee, I'm sorry, I should have asked."

"No, no, it's fine. Emma always made it like this when we were kids." He gave her a warming smile. If he was trying to win points with my mother, he was doing a spectacular job. He had tugged on just about every heart string and we were only five minutes into our conversation.

"Yeah, Emma was placed in my parent's home when she was sixteen. I had always wanted a sibling but when my mother couldn't have any more children; they applied to be foster parents. It was never really the same. It was hard to get close to a kid when the social workers would pull that kid out for one reason or another. It wasn't until Emma came that I really felt like I had a sister."

I closed my eyes and shook my head. My mother was really soaking this in. For the most part it was true, but he was making it sound so much better than it actually was. He was setting her up for fall, and I just couldn't take it. "JC, don't." I shot him a pleading look. "Don't do this, please. Mom, I don't think that you're ready…" I was cut off by David squeezing my hand.

I looked over to him, "It's time," he nodded. A single tear rolled down my face. My father was telling me that now was the time that I was going to tell my mother about one of the worst moments of my life. There was no way to spare her feelings on this, but I could see that he was giving me the support that I needed to continue. But he was also saying that he needed to hear it too.

"JC's house was a decent placement at first. But it was the last home that I was placed in before I ran away from the system." I took a deep breath. I looked between my parents. Their eyes were intently locked onto my face.

"JC was the only other kid in their house and he was their biological child." I looked over to JC and he nodded in reassurance, so I continued "The first few months were ok. But that was mostly because Child protective services was checking in every couple of weeks. But as their visits slacked off, Mr. Cooper's drinking increased." The sound of my mother's gasp sent a pain through my heart. But I had started so I had to finish. JC had moved his chair closer to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

"As time went on, the fighting and the hitting got louder and harder. I would hide in my room. And when I finally heard it all stop I knew that Mr. Cooper had either left or had fallen asleep. That was when I would go find JC, take him back to his room, and take care of his wounds. I didn't dare take him to my room, because if Mr. Cooper found him there" I paused, "well, you know."

"Emma, did he ever-?" my mother started to asked. I put my hand up to cut her off.

"After I had gotten him to his room and I knew that he was going to be ok, we would sit and talk for hours. This wasn't anything new to me. I had been through my fair share." A tear rolled down Mary Margaret's cheek.

"But we would talk and dream about how we were going to run away together and I would be free of the system and he would be free of his father. We even came up with a plan on how we were going to leave. February 2 at 5 AM was the day and time. He would have been passed out by then. And it would have been a clean getaway. We had some fake ID's made up to give us aliases and make me 18. And JC had, what" I looked to him "$3000 saved up from delivering pizzas for the past couple of years?" He nodded to say that my recollection was correct.

"That morning, we set our plan in motion. We were going to leave the house, hit the ATM and then directly to the airport to buy our tickets out of Boston. Except, when we went downstairs Mr. Cooper wasn't passed out. No, he was awake, drunk, and arguing with Mrs. Cooper. That was the day that I learned what kind of damage a baseball bat can do. I stood there frozen; I didn't know what to do. In all the time that I had been there, he never laid a finger on her or me. He never yelled at either of us. Only JC. JC got it all, all of the anger, all of the yelling, all of the hitting." I sent him an apologetic look, "He took it all for both of us. But then Mr. Cooper saw me standing there. He knew that I had seen everything and he came after me. I don't remember much more after that, I only know what JC had told me when I woke two weeks later in the hospital. And that was, that when he saw Mr. Copper going after his mother, he called 911. The police showed up and busted in while he was beating me. He was arrested, plead guilty, and has been in jail ever since."

My mother's hand flew to her face and she was sobbing on uncontrollably. My father was also crying, but his hysterics did not compare to hers. I quickly ran to her and knelt down by her side.

"Mom, look at me," she shook her head.

I tried again, "Mom, please, look at me."

She began crying harder, I pulled her hands from her face and guided them to mine. I forced her to touch my cheeks, my nose, and my lips. "Momma, please, look at me, I'm ok, see?"

I started to cry. Why did I tell her this. Why did she ever have to know that this had happened to me. "Mom, please…" I put her hands back to my cheeks that were wet with tears. She, then, quickly pulled my head to her torso and just held me tight as we both cried.

"I'm ok, mom." I said again. "I survived and I'm stronger for it."

My mother held me and cried for what seemed like hours. She cried for me. She cried for her and David. She cried for JC. I really do not know how long she held me. At some point my father got up and pulled JC into just as tight of a hug and would not let him go. Then I finally heard my mother ask a question. "What happened when you left the hospital?"

"What?" I asked, gently pulling away from her. She cupped my cheeks with her hands.

"What happened when you left the hospital?" She repeated.

Before I could answer, JC spoke up. "Emma, was sent to a group home to fully recover. She was there for a couple of weeks after her hospital release. I went to visit her every day. When she was finally ready, we made plans. We met at the park on a sunny April afternoon. I gave her the ID, the money, and a plane ticket to Portland."

I smiled up at my mother, "You know everything that happened after that; Neal, jail, Henry…"

My mother pulled me close to her once more. But I could tell that she had looked over to JC, who was still being held by my father, and mouthed a thank you. I knew that David had said something to him, but I did not hear what it was.

Once I was able to wiggle free from my mother's hold, we all sat back at the table. The clock was showing that it was about time for lunch and Neal was actually waking up from his morning nap. How that little one slept through all of that commotion was a mystery to me. But I was grateful that he did.

My mother had risen to get him, but I told her to sit. I would get him. I pulled JC with me, just to give my parents a moment to themselves. "Time to meet the little brother."

"Hey little guy," JC said as I picked him up from the crib. He reached down to tickle his chin and Neal's little fist clamped onto his finger. "I must say, you look just like your big sister."

I looked back to the kitchen at my parents. They were engage in a small but important conversation. "Why are you here, JC?"

He gave me a sour look. "Can we talk about this later?"

I should have known that after what I had just told my parents, they wouldn't leave me alone for too long. They were already making their move to check on me and Neal. "Later," I hissed back. "Why you are here, and what it is that you think you know. Got it?" he nodded.

"Emma" I peaked past the curtain to see my mother.

"Are you guys hungry? We thought that we could order pizza, and maybe you two could share some good stories with us?" She was hopeful but I could still see the sadness on her face. At this point in time, I needed to make the rest of this day about them. I needed to let them hug me, kiss me, not let me out of their sight for more than two seconds. It was going to take some time for them to heal from today's confession. And I had to let them heal in their own way.