hunnyfresh - Letters from War

Henry gasped obnoxiously. "That's a bad word," he scolded though kept his face buried nonetheless.

August could barely contain his laughter and gave a gasp of his own, pointing accusingly at the blonde. "That is a bad word."

Henry eyed him suspiciously but nodded his agreement. Emma just barely refrained from rolling her eyes at August but gave Henry a dutiful squeeze. "You're right, it is a bad word. Don't tell Mommy I said it."

"Or what? Regina will give you a spanking?" August guffawed.

This time Emma did glare and huffed out her annoyance. "You wish," she muttered.

"You already blew out your candles, is that what you wished for?"

She made sure Henry wasn't looking to flick August behind the ear, not only for his joke but for laughing at her as well.

August held his chest wounded, but Emma simply rolled her eyes with a playful smile dotting her face. Her attention was drawn from the man when Henry lifted his head and took Emma's chin in both of his hands. He cast a wary glare to August, none too subtly eyeing his leg before whispering in the loud way only toddlers do. "He's a cyborg like John Silver."

Emma almost let out a bark of laughter and made a mental note to talk to Regina about how much Treasure Planet this kid watched, but she held in her amusement and nodded solemnly. "Looks like him, doesn't he?"

Henry nodded. "But no eye patch," he added quickly.

Emma bumped August's shoulder and successfully moved Henry so he could face the older man. "He's a nice cyborg. He's, he's like my brother," she said with a bashful smile.

Her embarrassment was quickly replaced with annoyance when August playfully nudged her chin with his knuckles.

August leaned over and placed a hand over his mouth, barring Emma from his and Henry's conversation as he whispered conspiratorially. "She's probably one too."

"No!" Henry giggled, pushing August back. He looked up at Emma, but his roving hands had the woman knowing he was looking for any metal under her skin. "Are you?"

August laughed and shook his head before Emma could answer. "She wasn't cool enough."

Emma grimaced with an apology in her eyes, but August simply smiled and squeezed her shoulder in understanding. Their silent communication was disrupted when Henry tilted his head, a move Emma noticed Regina did often when she was curious and determining the best course of action. He crawled over to Emma's other leg closer to August, one hand still gripping the blonde's neck as he twisted his body to face the man. "Does it hurt?"

"Sometimes," August admitted, stretching out his leg for Henry to get a better look. "But a lot of the times my foot gets really itchy, and I can't scratch it."

Henry squinted and looked down at his boot clearly encased around something. "Why?"

"It's not there."

"Why?"

"I got hurt too badly and they had to take it away."

"Why?"

"Sometimes it's better to just remove the bad stuff."

"Why?"

August looked up exasperated, but Emma smirked, pleased that someone else was on the receiving end of Henry's curiosity. Emma rolled a shoulder, letting August fend for himself.

"Because they found out I'm a cyborg," he concluded with a nod.

Henry gave one of his own as if that answered all of his questions. He suddenly leaned away from Emma to reach over to August's neck, tugging at the ball chain there and lifting it from beneath his shirt. Squinting at the tags, he turned back to Emma and pulled her own tags from around her neck so fiercely the blonde choked a little and ended up knocking heads with her Sergeant. "It's the same," Henry concluded after a very intense inspection of the tags.

"Told you," August whispered. "She's a cyborg."

"No," Henry insisted, almost scoffing at the older man who looked amused by the attitude of the three-year old. He turned to Emma holding up the tags. "Can I have it too?"

Emma smiled tightly, weaving the tags out of Henry's fingers, letting them drop over her shirt. "These are special. You get them when you work at a job like mine and August's."

"I can do it too," the boy insisted.

Both August and Emma looked at each other solemnly before the younger woman bounced Henry on her knee once. "I don't know, kid. Mommy's gonna miss you a lot."

"But you like a bwave knight!" He exclaimed.

Emma's heart melted at the adoration in his eyes. It was moments like these where she felt untarnished pride to put on the uniform, where every bad thing she had ever seen or done didn't matter because someone, even if it was just a child, thought she was a hero. She kissed his forehead gently and held his hands in her own earnestly. "You're a brave knight too, Sir Henry. And before you think about working like me and August, you gotta make sure Mommy is safe. Can you be Mommy's knight for me?"

"I am," he promised dutifully with a nod of his head.

A loud bark from Pongo, jumping excitedly at the threshold of the parlour, interrupted Henry's inquisition and distracted him from his newfound cyborg.

"Hi Pongo!" He greeted happily. The dog barked again, running in one quick circle at the entrance of the room, and Emma had to hand it to Regina. She even had the Dalmatian, whom she claimed to tolerate only barely, trained not to enter into one of her more formal sitting areas. Henry crawled off of Emma's lap and hurried after the dog, gripping Pongo's collar lightly as they trailed away from the room.

"Sorry," Emma apologized, motioning her head to Henry's retreating form. "His favourite movie is Treasure Planet."

August held up his hand in understanding. "Kid's curious. Great taste in movies though."

"He wants to grow out his hair like Jim Hawkins and get a rat's tail too," she laughed. "Regina hasn't figured out how to talk him out of it yet."

"Tell him he has to get the piercing too," August suggested. "That'll solve everything."

"Or make it worse," she groaned at the thought. Tucking her leg underneath her, she shifted to face August, an arm resting against the back of the couch as a soft smile graced her lips. "I can't believe you came down all this way."

"Really? You can't believe that?" He said offended. "Come on, Swan, that's what families do."

"Not all of them," she said dryly.

"That's because they weren't family." He leaned over to pat her leg. "It's been different for a while now, hasn't it?"

It took Emma a second to realize that yeah, August was right. Despite the trouble she had gotten into at the Johnson's, she had had August with her there, and then again when she enlisted, and now as her relationship with Regina and Henry growing by the day, it was surreal to have everyone she cared for all under one roof, in some middle of nowhere town that Emma would never have visited if the stars hadn't aligned. She shook her head, unbelieving of her luck but accepting it as it came. "Yeah," she admitted. "It's been pretty good for a while."

"Plus I had to see this for myself," August waggled his eyebrows knowingly. "Quite the friend you've got there, Emma. This time make sure that bedroom door is locked."

Emma rolled her eyes, but the thought of kissing Regina behind closed doors with no interruption was so captivating it took more mental resources to tap down on the image, for now at least. "Come off it."

"I'm just saying, you got a good one," August grinned. "She basically tracked me down. Hey, who's Sidney Glass?"

"A reporter." Emma squinted. "Why?"

"Sounded pretty frightened on the voicemail if I didn't contact Regina immediately and come to Storybrooke for a special event."

"A special event?" She asked incredulously. "It's just my birthday party."

"Pretty telling, isn't it?" He smirked when Emma ducked her head in pleased embarrassment. "What's going on with you two?"

This time Emma looked up, shrugging though not upset with it. "No idea," she began, "but, I don't know, I know that I, you know, like, like her."