OUAT belongs to ABC

I started writing this like forever ago. Along with like 3 other OUAT oneshots. Finally finished this one, yeesh. It takes place in Storybrooke, pre-Neverland I guess.

Emma held her breath as she crept down the stairs. She couldn't afford to make even the smallest sound, not until she was safely out the door. She looked around quickly at the bottom of the stairs. Her captor was nowhere to be seen. This was her chance. Just a few strides across the room to the door and-

"Where do you think you're going?"

Emma froze halfway between the stairs to the loft and the door of the apartment. Standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips and her eyebrows raised was her captor, who also happened to be her mother.

"Oh, weird," Emma laughed, standing up straight and looking around. "I guess I was uh… sleepwalking?"

Mary Margaret was unimpressed. She just crossed her arms over her chest and gave Emma a pointed look.

Emma caved immediately. "Alright fine I was trying to sneak out," she muttered, exhaling the words in a long breath. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, not even caring about her appearance at this point. Then she cast Mary Margaret a sidelong glance. "But I think the better question is how did you just appear in the kitchen? I looked when I got to the bottom of the stairs, you weren't there."

Mary Margaret rolled her eyes, though an amused smile was tugging at her lips. "You always seem to forget I was a bandit," she pointed out levelly. She started shooing her daughter back toward the stairs up to her room, giving her a gentle push when she tried to slip by her again. "Where do you think you get your sneaking skills? Your father the yodeling goat-herd?"

Emma stopped on the stairs and looked back at her. "Wait, he doesn't really yodel does he?" she asked seriously.

"It was a joke," Mary Margaret deadpanned. "Now march."

Emma didn't say another word as Mary Margaret herded her up the stairs and back into her bed. Emma immediately burrowed under the covers like a rabbit, and it was clear to Mary Margaret that her daughter still had a fever. She was a bit delirious; she had been all day, and this was the third time her mother had caught her trying to sneak out. The bedside was a mess of used tissues and spilled cough syrup, not to mention the tower of empty cups and mugs that had held everything from orange juice to chicken soup to hot tea in the past two days Emma had been sick.

"I'm not sick," Emma informed her mother obstinately as she attempted to pull the bedcovers into a cocoon around herself. Mary Margaret had lost count of how many times Emma had told her this in the last forty-eight hours, and it had rapidly become clear that it wasn't true when she started throwing up any and all solid food she tried to eat.

"Of course not, honey," Mary Margaret replied fondly as she stepped in to help tuck Emma into her bed. She stopped squirming around immediately and allowed Mary Margaret to straighten the blankets and tuck them snugly under her sides.

Mary Margaret had to stop and let herself take a breath. It was tragic, really, that Emma had to be reduced to a fever-addled mess to let her mother get this close to her. Mary Margaret even felt a bit guilty for taking care of her, knowing how furious Emma would be if she was aware of what was going on.

But the truth of it was, Mary Margaret wanted to be her mother so badly it hurt. She had been ready, eight-and-a-half months' worth of ready, to be the mother of the tiny, pink, screaming little bundle that was her baby, and the next thing she knew that baby was twenty-eight years old and couldn't maintain eye contact with her for more than a few moments because she was terrified by what she saw there. She was terrified by the sameness, by the thought that Snow White might actually be her mother and she would have to let go of the picture in her head of the villain that had chosen to give her away.

Mary Margaret knew she had given birth to Emma, but she was beginning to suspect she would never be her mother. And that broke her heart in the deepest and most painful of ways.

So this was her chance. Probably her only chance.

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked down at her daughter, cozy in her blankets and looking up at her with feigned innocence. Mary Margaret smiled and took another breath.

This was her chance to be Emma's mother.

"Alright, are you all tucked in?" Mary Margaret asked gently, leaning over and placing a hand on her daughter's forehead. Still hot. She brushed some hair behind her ear.

"Yeah," Emma replied with a yawn. "Don't think I've ever been tucked in. This is awesome."

Mary Margaret tried to ignore her heart breaking again.

"Well I clearly can't trust you to rest on your own, so I'll just have to stay here and keep an eye on you," she sighed, trying to make it sound like it was a huge bother.

"That's fine," Emma replied, which surprised her. "But you have to tell me a story before I can sleep."

She said it so matter-of-factly that Mary Margaret laughed. Emma grinned, pleased with herself. Clearly her mind wasn't completely gone to the fever.

"Okay, let's see…" Mary Margaret hummed thoughtfully. "How about… The Prince and the Pauper, also known as, How Your Father Became Royalty Against His Will." Emma snorted with laughter. "Or um… Snow White and Rose Red: How I Became Best Friends with a Werewolf." Emma laughed out loud, and Mary Margaret couldn't help but join in.

"No no, I know those already," Emma said dismissively when she managed to stop laughing. "Tell me about being a bandit."

Mary Margaret gave her daughter a perplexed smile. "Why do you want to hear about that?" she asked curiously.

Emma shrugged. "I can relate," she said simply.

Mary Margaret laughed, a bit sadly. "I guess you can," she admitted. "What do you want to hear about?"

"Well… did you ever work with other thieves?" Emma asked after pausing for a long yawn. "You know, like Robin Hood and Little John and Will Scarlet and Friar Tuck."

Mary Margaret smirked at the excitement in her daughter's tone. "Why Emma, are you acquainted with the tales of Robin Hood already?" she asked lightly.

Emma rolled her eyes. "I may have read The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire about a hundred times when I was a kid, so what?" she muttered. "Plus there was the Disney movie. You know, with the animals." She paused and her eyes went wide. "Was Robin Hood actually a talking fox?"

"No, sweetie," Mary Margaret laughed, shaking her head. "I never met him or his Merry Men, but I saw our Wanted posters hanging together on many occasions."

Emma nodded, clearly a little disappointed but trying not to be.

"Although…" Snow said slowly, thinking back. "I did meet another thief shortly after your father and I met and had our little adventure with the trolls."

Emma snorted at the word 'little,' but otherwise said nothing.

"I met him in the castle town of a kingdom near Sherwood Forest, actually," Mary Margaret laughed a bit as she remembered. "He was quite a bit younger than me… barely a teenager. But we had a lot in common."

Emma yawned again, but she tried to stifle it, clearly interested in the story.

"I stopped in the town for supplies," she continued. "He tried to steal from me and I nearly took his arm off, but I knew that look in his eyes." The smile slid from her face for a moment. "He was just a kid. Just hungry and scared."

"Yeah, I know that look too," Emma sighed. Mary Margaret met her eyes for a moment, but Emma just yawned. "Go on."

"So I bought him breakfast and he told me about himself. He was an orphan who had taken to stealing to get by, but his life had taken a bit of a turn a few days before we met. He had been hiding in the woods after stealing from some guards when he came across a girl," Mary Margaret related quietly. Emma hung on every word. "She had been riding and something spooked her horse, so it threw her and she hurt her ankle. Then the horse bolted and she was left lost in the woods. She was doing fine, not scared or anything, she just couldn't move very far with her injured ankle. She was more concerned that her family would panic, her older brother especially. So he went back to the path and stole one of the guard's horses, and he gave the girl a ride back to the town."

Mary Margaret stopped and grinned. "That's when he found out the girl was the princess," she continued.

"Ha, I knew it!" Emma blurted with a triumphant laugh. Mary Margaret laughed right along with her.

"So there I was, sitting at the docks with this poor thief who clearly hadn't realized that he had fallen in love with this princess, and it hit me that we were exactly the same," Mary Margaret sighed. "Because I'd gone and fallen in love with a prince without realizing it."

Mary Margaret looked at Emma, and she could see that her daughter was beginning to drift off. She smiled fondly at her little girl.

"I gave him some money and some advice," Mary Margaret finished quietly. "I told him that if he loved her and she loved him, it wouldn't matter that he was a thief and she was a princess. I told him he should try to see her again, just talk to her like a person, and then he would know what to do."

Emma's eyes were shut and her breathing had slowed. Mary Margaret smiled and turned out the light beside her bed. She got to her feet very slowly, trying not to disturb the bed, but apparently she hadn't been sneaky enough.

"You never told me his name," Emma murmured, sounding as though she was half asleep.

"Oh," Mary Margaret paused beside the bed. "That's right. His name was Flynn, and the princess of the kingdom was called Rapunzel."

Emma laughed sleepily. "Of course she was," she sighed. Mary Margaret just shook her head, amused. Then Emma spoke again. "Hey, stay here okay?"

Mary Margaret froze in surprise. "Of course," she finally managed to whisper. She dragged a chair over next to the bed and sat down, only to find Emma had slipped her hand out from under the covers and was holding it out to her.

Mary Margaret stopped to take a breath before she took her daughter's hand.

"Thanks, Mom," Emma muttered.

And just like that, Emma fell back to sleep, leaving Mary Margaret clinging to her hand with tears rolling down her cheeks and a smile on her face.