Getting to know

thekeeblerelf asked for a oneshot of Emma and Charming talking about what she saw when she touched the book to believe and what she went through that day.

"Pass the salt please." Emma asked as she cut up her chicken. After being nagged for weeks Emma had agreed to go on a dinner date with her dad. He smiled, handing her the shaker.

"It good?" He asked, gesturing to her plate. Emma nodded.

"Yeah, how's your pasta?" She asked.

"Good." He replied.

"So…was there a reason you wanted to have dinner?" Emma asked her dad.

"Does a dad need a reason to want to have dinner with his daughter?" He retorted. Emma shrugged, it was quite unusual for her. Charming just laughed. "Oh gee thanks Emma. I just wanted to have some time to get to know you better. Since the curse broke it's like we've been in fast forward. There's been so many attacks on the town or times when we've all been separated from each other that I haven't really had the chance. At least your mom got that time whilst you were both in the Enchanted Forest."

"Alright," Emma said after taking a sip of her red wine "What do you want to know?" Charming hadn't thought of an answer to that.

"Well let's start from where we started." He said. "When the curse broke. What happened? How did you start to believe?" Emma smiled slightly as she remembered herself picking up the storybook and the visions that past through her head.

"A girl will be born to the Princess Snow White and her Prince Charming and she will be the one to start the process." The seer predicted.

Snow meeting Charming.

Snow finding out she was pregnant and the joy she and Charming shared.

The day Emma was born. The day Emma was lost to them.

Emma explained all the visions to her father.

"So there was really no way I could deny things any more." Emma added. "I just knew you guys were my parents. I knew Regina had been lying the whole time. Then I did what Rumplestiltskin told me, Henry died, I kissed him, the curse broke and the rest you know."

"That must have been pretty scary for you." Charming said, reaching out and covering her hand with his. It was testament to how much their relationship had grown that neither felt uncomfortable with the action. Emma shrugged.

"It was. But it was hard to tell one emotion from the other that day. So much happened, so much changed. Can't have been easy for you or mom either. Remembering you had a kid that now wasn't a kid. Must have hurt." Charming smiled warmly at her.

"Yeah, knowing we'd missed nearly three decades of our daughter's life was hard. But we knew it was better than the alternative. We wanted you to be safe, even if it meant it wasn't with us. You understand that, right Em? You know we didn't want to give you up. It was the last thing we wanted." Emma gave a watery smile back.

"Yeah, the visions when I picked up the storybook told me that, even if I didn't let myself believe it for a while. Coming from my background it was hard accepting that there were two people out there who loved you unconditionally. I'm sorry I was so hard on the pair of you for so long."

"Don't be. You had every right to be mad. I'm just glad we're in a good place now. We're a family, and nobody is splitting us up again." Emma sniffed to get rid of the tears.

"Never."