Repeat (A Once Upon A Time Fanfiction / Captain Swan's Daughter)

13

"I'm back." I heard Emma shout while slamming the front door. She had been gone for about an hour and a half. While she was gone I took a shower, as I didn't get chance to have one the night before. It didn't take me that long to shower, so after I had got changed and dried my hair I went to talk to Henry.

Henry was sat on his bed with his door wide open, so I went and leant on the doorframe.

"Can we talk more about your theory?" I asked, still curious about everything Henry had said to me at Granny's earlier today.

Sure, come and sit over here. Henry guided me towards a pile of beanbags at the far end of his room. They were beneath a window, but that didn't help with the lighting. It was evening, so the sun had started to set. Once we had both slouched into a large blue beanbag each, Henry leant back to a nearby bookcase. It looked like he should have been in pain from the way he twisted his back to reach a thick book. Gold writing was engraved into the chunky brown cover of the book. It said 'Once Upon A Time'.

"When I was 10 and Emma first moved here, she didn't believe in happy ever afters." Henry began to explain. His tone of voice made me think that he was leaving important parts of his story out, but I wasn't 100% sure. "After a while, she started to believe and see the truth. Since losing Phoebe, also known as you, she started to go back to her old ways. She's lost hope. She doesn't cry in front of me, but makeup can't completely correct her puffy eyes and tear stains. I want to be able to make both of you believe again."

"Why do I need to believe anything? I'm fine." I quizzed Henry.

"That's what Emma thought when she first came. If you don't believe, it's going to be hard to prove my theory." He replied. I didn't know what to think about Henry. His ideas seemed to be a little eccentric, but I liked him. He was interesting and easy to talk to.

Once Emma arrived we changed the subject and we talked about our interests, spotting some similarities. We realised that we both like books, we both like cinnamon on our hot chocolate, we both thought that Spring was a boring season, and that we both thought The Lion King was overrated. Emma popped her head around the door to see how we were. She wasn't in the room with us, but Henry didn't want to take any chances by talking about the long lost baby thing infront of her. Neither did I.

Before going back downstairs, I heard Emma take a shower. I smiled at her incredibly loud and incredibly off-tune singing. She was singing an Alison Moyet song called 'Only You' that I had loved for as long as I can remember. I felt like Beyoncé when I sang in the shower, and Emma obviously was feeling the same.

"There's food on the table and it's going to go cold if you don't come and eat it." Emma's voice boomed from the below about twenty minutes after she went back downstairs. I headed for the door and Henry followed, putting his tablet onto the bed on his way.

Emma had cooked some pasta with tomato sauce. She had gone to the effort of grating some cheddar cheese, too. I didn't realise how hungry I was until I saw the food on the table. It wasn't a Gordon Ramsay Italian masterpiece, but it was tasty and I loved pasta. My food didn't even have a chance to cool down, because I gobbled it down quicker than you could say 'don't burn your tongue'. I think I did burn my tongue, but that's beside the point.

We didn't really talk while we ate, as we were all very clearly a lot more hungry than we expected.

"That was delicious, thank you." I smiled at Emma as I neatly positioned my cutlery together on the plate.

"It was a ready made sauce, but maybe another time I can make my own sauce. I can actually make a pretty good tomato sauce, can't I Henry?" Emma asked her son to back her up.

"You do." He nodded.

"If it were me, I probably would have found a million ways to cook everything wrong." I admitted.

We talked for a while. It was nice. A week before, I was eating alone in my small box bedroom in a house filled with people who wouldn't look twice if I was knocked over by a bus. Now, I was sat with people I had only known for a few days but already was beginning to trust. You'd think I would be emotionally and psychologically messed up from the lack of love and care I had received throughout my childhood, but I was surprisingly stable.

"I need to go upstairs and finish some homework." Henry got up from the table and pushed his chair in before going upstairs. That left me and Emma.

"You should really be in school." Emma told me, leaning back into her wooden dining chair.

"You can't just walk into a school. You need legal guardians and a permanent address and a bunch of other important things." I explained, even though Emma would obviously know this. She had a son my age.

"This is Storybrooke, Phoebe." Emma said. "I'm sure there isn't a mile long waiting list to get a place. There's hardly any kids in Henry's class, and let's just say that BEINF Emma Swan has its benefits."

"What do you mean 'being Emma Swan has it's benefits'? Are you Storybrooke royalty or something?" I asked jokingly.

"Something like that." Emma shrugged her shoulders and laughed. She had such a contagious laugh. Even though she wasn't laughing hysterically, I still found myself laughing with her.

I helped Emma wash the dishes. At my foster home, if I didn't clean the dishes I didn't get to eat. They would all be dirty and you would have to clean what you needed, or you'd have to eat without cutlery or plates. I had become an expert at making sandwiches on the palm of my left hand.

Emma's phone rang and she went into the next room to talk to who I guessed was Mary Margaret. I sat on the sofa and messed about on my phone while she talked. I didn't have in particular anything to do on my phone, so I aimlessly tested every app I had.

Emma was on the phone to her sister, Mary Margaret, for about twenty minutes. After hanging up, she came into the living room and sunk into the sofa next to me. The sofa was dark grey, but felt like a cloud. It was by far the comfiest sofa I had even sat on.

"So, I'll try and get you into school tomorrow if you're staying. You are staying, right?" Emma asked.

"I want to, but I'm scared I'll get caught running away." I confessed.

"If the foster parents don't even care, I doubt they'll be in a hurry to find you. Especially not with their money for fostering rolling in." Emma said. It became clear to me that she had some experience of what I had been through. Most adults wouldn't understand.

"They'll have to find out someday." I always seemed to expect the worst, but it was a good way to prepare myself and prevent getting hurt. Emotions walls, maybe.

"I won't let them send you back the that dump, Phoebe." Emma was looking into my eyes; she was sincere. I was so grateful to have found Emma.

"Thank you." I smiled. I trusted Emma, even though there wasn't a lot she could do if social services arrived.

"So, about tomorrow." Emma said, bringing the subject back to where it had started. "Maybe we could have a girls day. I'm usually outnumbered by boys in this house, and it would be fun to do something more...feminine. Plus, you don't have a lot of stuff with you."

"That sounds amazing, but I don't want you to spend your money on me." I always felt bad accepting money from other people.

"Well, I want to." Emma persisted.

We tried to argue for about a minute over the money, but Emma won. I was really excited for our girls day, as I had never done anything like that before.