Forty eight hours
A guest asked for a oneshot of Emma going missing for about 2 days and her parents receive a video tape of her locked up and badly injured.
Snow and Charming both sat at the table moving their now soggy cereal from one side of the bowl to the other, neither able to take so much as one mouthful. Neither had slept at all last night. Both lay tossing and turning silently, frightened they'd wake the other, not realising they were both in the same state. How could they not be? Their daughter had been missing for over forty eight hours now. They'd been out there searching themselves for most of those hours until Red and the dwarves had ordered them home to rest while they took over the search. How could they rest? Did their friends not understand?
Both of their heads shot up when they heard a noise coming from the hall. Was it her? Was she finally home? Their chairs scraped against the floor as they rushed out…only to have their hopes dashed. Emma was not there, nobody was. Just as they were leaving, Charming glanced down and saw something on the floor. He picked it up and found it to be an old VHS tape with a small post-it note attached: "Emma says hello." Snow read the note herself over his shoulder. Both parents suddenly felt violently sick, their worst fears confirmed. Emma had been kidnapped. They had hoped that option had been ruled out with Zelena and George both locked away. But clearly not.
Charming's hands were shaking as he placed the tape in the machine. He sat beside Snow on the couch and they linked hands as they waited for it to play.
After a screen of static, Emma appeared on the screen. She was tied to the chair in the middle of an otherwise bare wooden room. Her head was drooping and there were visible gashes all over her. Aside from the occasional whimper from Emma, there was silence as the person holding the camera walked around Emma in a full circle. Charming's hands balled into fists as Snow shook her head, not wanting to believe that was Emma in that room. What were they doing her? Suddenly, the image cut out and the word payback flashed up on the screen before it cut out completely.
"We have to find her." Charming said, getting up. "Whoever has taken her obviously wants some kind of revenge on us. I'll be damned if they're taking it from my daughter." Snow followed her husband feeling almost completely numb. Emma just looked so broken in that tape. Who could do that to her child? They had to find her- and they had to find her now.