I apologize so very much for the wait; I started a new job that has me so tired by the time I get home most nights it's all I can do to shower and crawl into bed let alone thinking about writing and then my uncle passed away and just... it hasn't been a fun few weeks. So I apologize so very much for the wait and also for the brevity of this chapter. Hopefully I'll get back into long chapters soon. Thank you all for your sweet words.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything and all mistakes are my own.

through the wind and the rain,
she stands hard as a stone,
in a world that she can't rise above,
but her dreams give her wings,
and she flies to a place where she's loved,
concrete angel...
-Martina McBride;

Emma Swan has been in her class for four days and everything has gone smoothly that Mary Margaret Blanchard thinks just maybe the mid-year transition of a younger child into her established fourth grade class might go off without a hitch. Of course it is then, just as she's begun to relax, that it all gets shot to hell with the shattering of a glass on the tile of the classroom floor. They had been working on an art project for the last forty-five minutes before lunch when Paige accidentally knocks the mason jar full of paint brushes off the corner of her group of desks and it shatters on the floor. Before the teacher can even begin to react, eight year old Emma Swan is under her desk, curled into a ball, and screaming at the top of her lungs while the class full of nine and ten year old children all stare at their younger classmate. Unsure of how else to proceed, Mary Margaret dismisses the class to lunch a few minutes early and directs them around the broken glass before she crouches in front of the petite blond and gives her a small broken smile as she reaches out to gently grasp Emma's uncasted forearm.

"Emma," she addresses her. "It's okay, sweetheart. It's okay. You're safe."

She watches as Emma blinks and seems to slowly snap out of whatever state the noise sent her into; the girl's face slowly moves from fear and sadness to shame. "Miss Blanchard?"

"That's right," she tells her. "You're okay, Emma."

"I'm sorry," the child whispers as tears pool under her eyes. "I'm sorry. Please don't tell David. Please. I don't want to be sent back."

"Emma," Mary Margaret breathes her name. "Honey, it's okay. You've done nothing wrong and no one is going to send you back."

"They always do!" Emma pushes back further under the desk. "They always send me back when I screw up and I always screw up. Please don't tell David, Miss Blanchard. He's the first good home that I have had in a really long time."

"Emma Swan," the teacher says her name firmly and pulls her from under the desk, gently but firmly, before wrapping her in a hug. "I'm going to let you in on a secret, okay? I've known David Nolan for a very long time – practically my whole life – and I've never seen him love anything or anyone the way that he loves you, sweetheart. He wants to give you a real home, Emma, and being scared because of bad things that happened in your past isn't going to make him send you away."

"It's not?" The little girl pulls back from the hug and dips her head so her blond hair curtains her face as she twists the toe of her sneaker into the floor.

"I wouldn't lie to you, Emma." She gently crooks a finger under the girl's chin. "What would make you feel better right now?"

"David," Emma whispers.

"I'll call him," the teacher tells her and gives her a soft smile. "Why don't you go get your lunch from your cubby and eat at your desk? I'll clean up this glass and call David."

"Okay."

It takes less than a minute for Mary Margaret to sweep up the broken glass and dump it in the trash can but by the time she settles at her desk Emma Swan is already tucked into her lunch – a lunch that makes her smirk, David is taking to fatherhood extremely well but he can't quite shake the bachelor lifestyle and so the girl is eating a congealed grilled cheese and cold hashbrowns that look like leftovers from breakfast at Granny's. She dials the number for the animal shelter and waits as the secretary connects her to the phone closest to David's work station. "Storybrooke Animal Shelter, David Nolan speaking."

"Hey David," she greets him. "It's Mary Margaret. There's been an incident with Emma-"

"Is she okay?"

The panic in his voice makes the teacher's heart clench. "Physically she's fine, I promise. A fellow student knocked a glass off a desk and the noise sent Emma into what I think was a panic attack... Her screams, David..." She's careful to keep her voice quiet so Emma can't hear across the room. "She came out of it fairly quickly but she was afraid that if I told you that you'd send her back. I think she needs to see you."

"I can be there in ten minutes."

–

David's fairly certain that he breaks at least half a dozen laws as he races his truck across the town and makes it to the elementary school in just under seven minutes before he sprints in the front door and hastily checks in at the front desk before taking off for the wing that holds the upper grades. Emma is sitting at her desk, picking at her lunch that he threw together in haste this morning, when he slips into the classroom. Her blue eyes light up for just a second before her face falls again, as if she remembers why he's here, when she sees him. Sparing a quick glance at the teacher who gives him a nod, he makes his way across the room to kneel in front of her. "Hey kid."

"Hi David," she whispers.

"Sorry for your greasy lunch," he tells her as he tweaks her nose. "I'll pack you a better one tomorrow."

"It's okay," she promises. "I like it. You don't have to do anything special for me. I can pack my own lunches from now on so I don't bother you."

"Emma," he breathes her name. "Stop."

"Please don't send me back," she pleads with tears in he eyes. "Please, David. Please. Please. Please. This is the first place I have ever been safe. I won't screw up again. I promise. I'll be good. I'll be so good. Don't send me back. Please don't send me back."

His own tears are starting to fall as he pulls her out of the desk chair and into his arms as he kisses her head. "Emma Swan, you listen to me. I am not sending you back – ever. No matter how badly you think you screw up, okay?"

"Promise," Emma whimpers in his ear as her arms wrap tightly around his neck – as if she loosens her grip and he might just disappear.

"Promise," he swears. "Wanna tell me why that broken glass scared you so badly?"

"No," Emma protests before sighing. "But I can."

"Only if you're ready to share it."

She pulls back from the embrace and perches on the edge of her chair, picking at an invisible thread on her jeans. "A couple homes ago... It was a bad place. They were really mean, David. And they had kids of their own and those kids hated me. We were supposed to do the dishes, me and the oldest boy. He broke a glass – it was an accident but the dad there heard it and came running, already mad. He said that I broke it. I got the belt. He made me count every single one and when I lost count he started again."

"Oh Em..." He wants to rage – he wants to kill anyone who would dare harm a hair on this sweet girl's head. "So when the glass broke today?"

"I don't know. I was just kind of back there. In that place. Until Miss Blanchard brought me back."

David nods and pulls her into his arms. "No one is ever going to hurt you like that again, Emma. I promise. They'll have to go through me."

"And me," Mary Margaret tells them as she places a protective palm on the back of the blond's head. "Why don't you go home with David, Emma? I'll come over when I get done with class today and we can go over the work for the rest of the day then."

"You'd do that," David asks.

"Of course," Mary Margaret tells him. "Unless you need to go back to work."

"No," he replies. "I took the rest of the day off."

"Great," she tells him. "You can make dinner and Miss Emma and I will go over a couple of math and history work sheets."

"Will you stay for story-time," Emma asks her teacher.

Mary Margaret smiles. "I wouldn't miss it for anything."