Deputy Swan

Chapter Eight

It's Sunday morning and as much as she is dreading leaving her mom, she actually misses Storybrooke. Alright, she misses a certain sexy, sassy brunette who wormed her way in to her heart. Five days apart have been torture.

It's fairly early in the morning, around seven, but she hears rustling around coming from the kitchen. She slings her duffle bag over her shoulder and heads down the hall. She's expecting to find her father, making breakfast for her mother to bring to her bed but to her surprise it's her mom.

"Mom?" She asks in bewilderment. Her mother's back is to her, and she's stretching up on her tiptoes to reach something in a higher cabinet. Emma drops her duffel bag and rushes forward with a gentle smile. "What do you need?"

"Oh, Emma," Mary Margret grins right back with love in her eyes as she falls back down to her feet. "I was trying to reach the salt, I need to fill the shaker."

"I got it," she insists, reaching up and snagging the container for her. "There you go."

"Thank you," her mom whispers before turning her attention back to the eggs.

Her delicate fingers wrap around the spatula and she begins scrambling the eggs in the pan. Emma smiles to herself and fills the shaker for her mother. Out of her peripheral, she studies her mom carefully as she turns down the heat of the stove and turns her attention to the fruit on the counter.

Mary Margret sets down the spatula and swiftly slides a very large knife out of the butcher block. It's purely on instinct the way her heart stops and too many haunting memories come flooding back. She doesn't want to think of her mother in that way anymore but it's so damn hard to block out something so traumatic.

She hears the steady rhythm of the knife connecting continuously with the cutting board. So, she closes her eyes and shakes her head to wipe away those memories. She tries to remind herself that the incident was fourteen years ago but she can't seem to ever shake the uneasy feeling of her mother holding a knife.

Mary Margret sets the knife down gently onto the counter and begins arranging the freshly cut fruit onto three plates. And Emma really should be leaving but there's no way she could say that right now, not when her mom is doing so well and she just needs these good memories to replace the old one.

She can stay at least for breakfast.

"Emma, honey, can you pour us some coffee?" Mary Margret sweetly asks and that delicate voice reminds her so much of her childhood before her world was flipped upside down.

"Of course, mom."

She retrieves three coffee mugs from the cabinet and places them down on the kitchen table. She watches out of the corner of her eye as her mom scoops the finished eggs onto the plates. Once she knows her mom isn't reaching for the knife again, she begins pouring the coffee.

"Oh, you're both up?" Her dad's confused voice snags her attention as he shuffles into the kitchen. David's fingers are busy finishing his last button on his dress shirt. He smiles brightly though and heads straight for his wife, lightly pressing a kiss to her temple and creating a beautiful smile to dance across her face. "Anything I can do to help?"

"No, I think we have it all under control," Mary Margret says, carefully placing their plates down onto the table.

David's broad smile couldn't bloom any wider, even if he tried. Before he sits down, he makes his way to Emma's side and kisses the top of her head. She flashes him a genuine smile and settles down in her usual seat.

She observes closely as both of her parents grin like two lovesick teenagers as they slide into their own seats. Each one of them knows what the other is thinking, but nobody says a word. This moment is too perfect to ruin with skepticism.