Did she want to be a princess? It was a question that had bothered her since the day she'd arrived in Lawrence and discovered via television what she really was. Who she really was. And she'd watched her story play out, watched her history unfold before her eyes. Some kids got tales of how their parents fell in love; Emma got to see it with her own eyes. And it was a little awkward, seeing not only her future but her past, but it was helpful. She wasn't some baby just abandoned and left for dead. She'd been given a chance to live and to save the rest of her world as well.
But was that a life she wanted? She'd spent twenty-eight years learning survival. Learning to make do with what she had and to furnish an apartment on thirty dollars. She'd grown accustomed to meals of Ramen and Campbell's and Burger King. If she had grown up as Princess Emma, the adored first daughter of Charming and Snow, then maybe it would be a different story. Maybe she'd be used to being the spoiled girl Jim was attempting to turn her into. But she was still all fire and feisty mannerisms and he'd deal with it or he'd move on.
She really, really didn't want him to move on, though. And she wanted to kick herself for that.
"I won't ever be your only focus, though," she pointed out quietly, meeting his eyes as she pulled back, just a bit. "Even with him gone, you've got...business to run." And, potentially, that future she was fighting so hard to prevent. She couldn't be his entire world, not if they brought a little girl into it. But that was so far in the future that she refused to even acknowledge it to herself, let alone out loud. "Besides, who would want one person as their only focus? Jim... Anything could happen." She'd seen enough people taken by the Seal, killed by the things here, people who just up and left. There were never any guarantees. Hell, there weren't even guarantees back home, why should there be here in the land of the crazy?
She was scared to lose him. But he wouldn't be the first thing that left her, if he did, and she'd survive. If she got pulled, though... If something happened to her? What then?