OUASC one-shots [ON HOLD]

(The Swan-Jones family) - The Children's Pasts

"...Yes?" both siblings answered simultaneously, nervously eyeing each other as they didn't understand why both of their alternate parents looked so dismayed.

"I see..." Killian said. "So, these villains, suffice it to say, they weren't the most suitable parental figures?"

"If ye could call them that," CJ scoffed.

"Has he ever done wrong by you?" Killian asked directly.

"I beg yer pardon?" Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Did he ever hurt you?" Killian said, his tone of voice clear that answering the question was not optional.

"Define 'hurt'," CJ said with her teeth gritted as she gave him a look.

"Did he hit you, insult you, scare you?" Emma asked, her tone matching her husband's.

Harry inhaled sharply and glared at the couple. "That is none of yer business. Ye keep forgetting ye don't have any real rights to us."

"I don't care if you're not our real children," Emma said in a flat tone despite how much the sentence pained her to say. "You. are. children. If you are in an abusive situation, it is our business as decent human beings to protect you."

"Well, we're not, anymore. Thank ye for the concern, but we can look out for ourselves," Harry said with still a bit of hostility in his voice due to the couple's insisting.

Emma facial expression turned into a softer one when she saw CJ unusually quiet and stiff on the couch, not making eye contact with anybody. Her expression then turned into a guilty one. Of course she didn't enjoy forcing the kids to reveal their abusive past, but they needed to know. They needed to protect them. And even without having to look at each other, Emma and Killian silently agreed—they will. With their lives if they have to.

"What about other children on the island? Did they suffer at the hands of their parents the same way you did?" Killian inquired.

"Most did," CJ said in a small voice with a tad of bitterness as she thinks about how her best friend is one of those rare exceptions who had a caring parent, at the very least, one that didn't hate you. She always felt guilty for how envious she remembered feeling towards Freddie because of it.

"And let me guess—" Emma said in a hard and angry tone, that as one might tell, wasn't directed at Harry and CJ despite the fact that she was speaking to them, "—you didn't have social services or law enforcement on the Isle of the Lost?" She said it's name with such enmity.

Both kids snorting and resisting the urge to laugh gave the parents the answers they needed. Not that Emma and Killian were incapable of taking a guess. The people that call themselves 'heroes' throw their enemies on an island prison, feed them scraps, and leave the vulnerable ones alone and defenseless. It didn't even matter if they didn't think of the possibility that villains could have children, the villains are still human beings! Even if certain ones did deserve to be treated like that, the heroes can't claim to be have any form of nobility if they stoop to their level and deny them basic human rights.

How the children that came from Auradon and the Isle of the Lost are so wonderful with the kind of 'parental figures' that grew up around is beyond the alternate parents the more and more time they spend around and the kids as well as learn about the people who raised them, if you could even call what they did to them raising. Did their world have any decent adults?

Emma came over and sat down next to the uncharacteristically silent girl. "You guys wanna talk about it?" she said in a gentle voice, softly nudging the younger blonde as Killian sat on the other side of Harry.

"What did he do to you?" Killian asked.

Harry was balling his fists as CJ was clenching her jaw, neither of them making eye contact.

"You don't have to tell us if you don't want to. These things take time," Emma said, eying Killian. Despite their new parents needing to know that they were abused for the sake of their own safety, for the children to actually open up about what they went through is something that needs to be handled with extreme care.

Harry shrugged as he shook his head. He sighed. "The usual—cruel and unusual punishments. Beatings, beratings, confinement, whatever he felt like whenever he felt like."

"Not even always punishments—maybe just when one needed a personal punching bag," CJ chuckled as though she found the situation funny, but anybody with eyes, ears, or a heart would see, hear, or feel the pain that she's hiding behind it.

"I'm sorry."

"It wasn't yer fault," Harry said. "Life is just crap like that."

"Do you still think about what happened?" Emma asked tentatively. "Any memories come back unwanted?"

"Sometimes," CJ shrugged before furrowing her eyebrows. "Why?"

"If you think it would make it better, you could go to therapy. It might feel better talking to a professional. If you don't want to talk at all, that's fine. But in my experience, you need to heal from what happened in some way, shape or, form. What do you think?"

———————————————

"Swan!" Killian exclaimed as Emma kicked the living room table in her anger.

They were alone in the house as CJ had actually taken them up on their offer to go see Archie. Harry, however, would hear nothing of it. He claimed he didn't need to pour his heart out to a cricket to cope with pain—he had done so on his own his whole life and wouldn't begin now. So after their talk, he left the house to go blow of some steam. Likely by sparring with one of his friends.

"How could this happen?" Emma cried to no one in particular. "How could we not have known?! They're our kids. How could we not feel when they were in trouble and needed us?"

"We didn't even know of their existence until months ago. You can't blame yourself," Killian tried to calm her down. It took enough self-restraint for both him and his wife to avoid getting angry in front of the Harry and CJ. But out of him and Emma, one of them needed go stay calm. If they both let out their frustrations about the idea of someone hurting their kids, the house may not remain standing by the end of it.

"You're right," Emma sighed, collecting herself and putting her hands on her hips. "I should blame them. The Auradon royals, James Hook, all those bastards," she seethed in a low voice.

"Well, they're in the children's pasts. We don't need to risk them ever seeing those bloody monsters again," Killian said.

Up until then, they still weren't able to find a way back to Auradon. Now, they're considering if that's not such a bad thing after all.

(A/N): Hello, new (and old) readers. Welcome to my new one-shot book and hope you liked the first chapter. I hope the requested enjoyed it. I apologize that it took so long to publish—I was stressed as hell last week but thankfully I'm better now. And I'm sorry if the first one-shot may have been a bit depressing or triggering. Hopefully more uplifting ones on the way! All you have to do is request.