Lithium (Once Upon a Time)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Mom, I'm gay and that's not even the worst part

Storybrooke, 26 December 2012...

Mary Margaret: I was so distracted lately...I knew David was talking to me. I could hear his voice telling me something, while I was doing dishes, but I couldn't pay attention. I had a more important manner clouding my judgement! The reasons towards Emma's behavior, her strangeness, and avoiding attitude.

I could sense something was off with my daughter, but it wasn't easy to determinate what that was.

"Mary Margaret? Are you listening to me?" David asked, but I kept thinking and over thinking about Emma. "Snow!" I finally placed the dishes on the balcony and stared at him, worried.

"David...We need to talk." I said, affirmably and very...very serious!

"Tell me something I don't know." He asked, placing his hands on his hips. "You've been so distant lately, what's going on?" He asked, leaning for a kiss, but the way my mind was lately I just couldn't do it.

"What's happening?" He asked again, not understanding my later low mood.

"I'm worried about Emma...She's been very distant lately. She almost didn't attend Christmas day and spent the all-day avoiding us. Today, she didn't even call us or came to the loft. What's going on with her?" I asked.

David exhaled sharply and looked at me, nodded, without knowing what to say.

We were two normal young adults who suddently woke up from a long slumber and discovered we not only had a grown up woman as our daughter, but a grandson! Our life was so messy...We missed so much with Emma, that we just didn't know how to act around her, how to behave with her. I could tell she felt like we treated her like a baby, but the truth was that I just didn't know how to reach her, beneath all those walls she built.

"You're right...Maybe it's because of the case she's working in. You know she likes to be alone when she's working on a case." He explained.

"David...Do you really believe she's working on a "case"?" I asked, without believing in how my husband could be so naïve.

"Huh...Right...I missed her teenage years..."

"The lying thing David..." I reminded him.

"Right...I almost forgot."

"I figured."

"So...What could be up with her?"

"I don't know...But we're going to figure out."

As I filled by husband's heart with hopes of learning what was off with our daughter, someone knocked on the door and I jumped, in surprise. It could be Emma!

I raced towards the door and opened it.

As I gazed upon a woman with messy blonde locks, I exhaled sharply, distressed.

"Emma! Where were you?! We were so worried." I told her, leaning for a maternal hug, which I felt being resisted by the "tough" savior.

"Oh...I'm fine, I was working late at the station...Just that."

David wrinkled his face, next to me. We knew she was lying again.

"Emma...Your father was at the station earlier and he didn't see you." I told her, placing my hands on her arms and almost begging for her to look at me and not to feel so tense around us.