Title: Aftermath
Summary: I could have lost her tonight.
Spoilers: Set post-4x02, "White Out."
Rating/Warning: K+, for language, mostly. Please have a toothbrush on standby, because Daddy Charming, ahoy!
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I took them while no one was looking but I won't tell if you won't.
Author's Note: Xelbie asked me for a Daddy Charming story following 4x02 and of course I was more than happy to oblige (because Daddy Charming = the best). This is a bit more introspective than I was really intending, especially in the beginning, but I hope I made it work. Also, I've not tagged this as complete because I do have ideas for companion pieces (Mama Snow is a definite but I was thinking I could do them for everyone), if there's interest. So, basically, if you want more, throw the story on your following list and you'll see more. ;) Feedback makes every day like Christmas! Enjoy. :)

I could have lost her tonight.

Though the danger had long since passed, those words kept running over and over through Prince Charming's head. The words taunted him, making his worst fears play out in his mind: arriving too late, not getting through to Elsa in time, failing his daughter once again.

Emma Swan was his baby girl, his light, his pride and joy, and he could have lost her tonight.

It was odd, he thought, how crisis and trauma affected the human brain. In the midst of everything, his only concern had been getting Emma the hell out of that icy prison. That singular, most important goal had kept him focused, which had turned out to be quite the good thing since the pirate, who was usually good in a crisis, had been dangerously close to losing it, as Emma would say.

The desperation in Hook's eyes, the pain, the fear … Charming had felt it, too. Not for a potential romantic partner the way Hook had but for his baby. This woman whom he'd loved before she was even born and who embodied the very best of both Snow and himself. All he'd wanted was to do as Elsa asked so they could free his baby girl … and then Elsa's message had come through: Emma was freezing to death.

Charming could still see the panic swimming in Hook's eyes and could still feel the panic swirling through his own heart. His baby was dying. That knowledge should have sent him over the edge but his baby had needed him, so he'd remained focused. He'd talked to Elsa and soon enough, a hole appeared in the wall just large enough for her and Emma to make their escape.

He could still see the blue tinge of Emma's skin as they dragged her out of the cave. He could still see the way her legs gave out not once but twice. He could still see his baby girl – his light, his pride and joy – deathly pale and shaking and half-frozen and so, so fragile. The image was burned into his brain and played across the backs of his eyelids every time he closed his eyes.

At the time, he'd been focused on nothing but saving his daughter. But now that the crisis was over and everyone was perfectly fine, snuggled under blankets in the darkened apartment, he couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. All those emotions he'd tamped down in order to save his baby, they were all surfacing now.

I could have lost her tonight.

Charming heaved a soft sigh. Clearly, lying in bed was not easing his mind any. No, only one thing would. Sighing again, he slipped out of bed very carefully so as not to disturb his wife.

Despite poor Snow's exhaustion, it had taken her a long time to fall asleep tonight. One didn't often come home to find one's daughter white as a sheet and buried under pretty much her weight in blankets. The second Snow's eyes had landed on her baby girl, she'd dashed over to her, knelt down on the side of the chair opposite Hook, and smothered Emma with attention while berating everyone else for not calling her. "I think something like this deserves at least a heads-up!" she'd cried, glaring directly at Charming.

Of course, once her panic died down, she'd understood that freeing Emma from the ice cave had been paramount and phone calls had understandably fallen by the wayside. Still, it had taken her quite a while to leave Emma's side and even longer to calm down enough to sleep.

Charming, though, still couldn't sleep. And it was for that very reason that he found himself climbing the steps to the loft bedroom at two-thirty in the morning.

He moved as quietly as he could to avoid waking a ridiculously full house. They'd offered Elsa a place to stay for the night with the promise of setting her up with something on a slightly more permanent basis at Granny's in the morning. Henry had offered her his bed in the loft, which meant he was sleeping on the couch.

And Hook … well, Hook had gone upstairs with Emma once she'd begun dozing off in the chair. After making sure that she'd warmed up enough that falling asleep was no longer dangerous, Charming had roused her just enough that she could make the walk upstairs. And when Emma had groggily asked the pirate to stay, Charming found himself allowing Hook to put her to bed. A part of him had cringed as he did so but a larger part of him had recognized how much his daughter had needed the pirate's presence.

As Charming reached the top of the stairs he noted with amusement that exhaustion had apparently won out in the loft even if it hadn't in the room below; none of the three people currently sleeping in the little bedroom had gotten as far as turning off Emma's bedside lamp. Emma was curled up on her side, at least four blankets piled up on top of the comforter already on the bed. Charming had no doubt she was lying under every single possible layer she could.

Hook lay sound asleep on his back next to her, on top of the covers. His jacket and hook lay atop her dresser and he had forgone even a light blanket in favor of allowing Emma to have the much-needed extra layers. Elsa lay on her side in Henry's daybed, her back to the room as if trying to give Emma and Hook as much privacy as she possibly could.

Only when Charming approached the bed did he notice that the color had returned to his baby girl's cheeks. He let out of a soft breath of relief. His little girl was alive. She was warming up and she was going to be just fine. He hadn't lost her tonight.

But I could have.

He sank down on the edge of the bed by Emma's knees. For a long moment, he just watched her sleep and listened to her breathe deep, even breaths that reminded him that she was, thankfully, still very much alive.

Eventually the need to touch her became too strong to resist and he brushed his fingers along her cheek to do a temperature check. She stirred at his touch, her eyelids fluttering.

Charming cringed, both for waking her and for getting caught. If he were to place bets, he'd wager on Emma throwing a minor conniption fit upon finding him checking on her as if she were a five-year-old. Still, he felt he was allowed tonight – the checking on her, not the waking her, which had been a complete accident – so he sat and watched as his sweet girl dragged her eyes open. "Dad?" she mumbled drowsily.

His heart leaped at the name. And oh gods did her groggy voice make her sound so much younger than her years, so much like the little girl he'd never known. Then clarity came into those sleepy eyes and she smirked at him. "Busted."

Another wave of relief washed over him. There was the Emma he knew and loved, sarcastic as ever. "Yes, I guess I am," he whispered back. "I just wanted to check on you."

She arched an incredulous eyebrow at him. Then a shudder ran down her spine, reminding her quite well of the reason her father would be checking on her at … er, oh-dark-hundred. "I suppose you're allowed," she said through a trying-to-be-nonchalant sigh. "It's not every day your daughter almost gets turned into a Popsicle."

No, it most certainly wasn't. Since she was joking with him, though, Charming didn't think she'd appreciate it if he took the conversation to quite such a serious place. Instead, he injected his voice with a teasing lilt he didn't exactly feel and said, "And thank the gods for that."

Just as he suspected, Emma smiled. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and before Charming could stop her, she propped her pillows up against the headboard and sank back into them.

Well, then. Apparently he was going to get some father/daughter time out of this little welfare check.

Not that he was complaining about that in the slightest.

It took Emma a moment to notice Hook lying asleep beside her. She appeared startled at first, then somewhat confused. In typical Emma fashion, however, she covered with a joke. She turned to Charming, a single eyebrow quirked and a smile on her face that was equal parts sheepishness and mirth. "You allowed this?" she asked, nodding towards the pirate.

"There was no prying him for your side," Charming replied with faux-annoyance. It had been the truth, of course; Killian Jones would not have heard of leaving Emma's side. It was in those moments outside the ice wall that Charming had finally seen the truth: the pirate loved his daughter. He'd been so desperate at the thought of losing her, the same desperation Charming himself would ever feel – or hell, had felt – at the thought of losing Snow.

From the moment Emma emerged from the ice, Hook hadn't left her side. And from the moment Emma emerged from the ice, it was clear that she hadn't wanted him to leave her side.

Emma's expression softened as she briefly glanced down at her pirate, seemingly both glad and touched that he hadn't wanted to leave her. When she looked up and caught her father's gaze again, he smiled at her. "Plus, you wanted him here."

That got her to frown slightly, as if she was trying to remember how or why that had been obvious. Charming had no clue how much of her ordeal she remembered. He had no idea if she knew how tightly she'd been clinging to Hook since they pulled her from the ice or if she even remembered gripping his hand as he walked her up to bed.

Emma must have remembered at least some of it, though, because a blush colored her cheeks as she shot Charming a sheepish smile. Sensing that she once again needed a joke, Charming added, "And who was I to deny what my almost-Popsicle wanted?"

The joke worked; the smile on her face grew a little wider and lost a bit of its sheepishness. "I wonder how long I can milk this," she teased.

Oh, Charming had no doubt she would have gotten away with milking many, many things as a growing princess. She would have had the entire castle wrapped around her little finger. Hell, she had Charming wrapped around her little finger now, never mind as a rambunctious young princess with bouncing blonde curls. He had to swallow hard against the sudden tightness in his throat over all the lost time and opportunities. "A couple days, at least," he replied, deciding to continue the joking rather than giving into the emotion.

"I can work with that."

A soft chuckle escaped Charming's lips.

Emma stifled a shiver and fixed the blankets around herself in an effort to hold in the heat. Charming couldn't help reaching out to check her temperature again. He expected her to duck out of his reach but surprisingly, she sat there and allowed him to do it, first with the backs of his fingers against her forehead and then bringing his palm down to cup her cheek. Her skin wasn't nearly as cold to the touch as it had been earlier but it wasn't completely warm yet, either. "You scared the hell out of us, kiddo," he murmured, dropping his hand back to his lap.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, dropping her gaze and once again sounding much more like the lost little girl he'd never known than the confident twenty-nine-year-old he did.

"Hey, none of that," he said, lifting her chin with his index finger in an effort to regain eye contact. "There's no need to apologize. We're just glad the night ended the way it did. Things could have been a lot worse."

Emma nodded, swallowing hard. The two of them sat in silence for a moment as they let the events of the evening settle. Just as Charming was about to suggest she try to go back to sleep, she said, "I was scared, too."

At first, he wasn't quite sure he'd heard her correctly. The hesitant look on her face, however, was proof enough. Despite the pounding of his heart, Charming forced himself to stifle his surprise, stay still, and let his baby girl know he was ready to listen if she was ready to talk.

"In the cave, I mean," she continued somewhat uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure why or how she was even saying any of this. "A lot of it is kind of a blur, to be honest, but I remember being scared. Really scared. I've finally got a family now, people I love, and … I was afraid I was going to lose you."

Her voice hitched on the last sentence. Charming couldn't be sure whether the hitch had been due to her emotion or a shiver, but frankly, it didn't matter. In less than a second, he shifted closer to his baby and pulled her into a tight hug, his palm bracing the back of her head. The gesture must have been exactly what she needed because she wrapped her arms around him just as tightly.

Oh, how his heart was leaping for joy at holding his daughter in his arms. "You're never going to lose us, Emma," he murmured into her ear. "You're never going to lose us."

And then something even more miraculous happened: she nestled her head on his shoulder. His heart exploded with more love and more joy and more warmth than he had ever thought possible.

For a long beat, he simply held her. It wasn't until her grip around him began to go slack that he even moved, gently running his hand up and down her back. His baby girl was falling back to sleep and as much as he adored sitting with her in an embrace like this, it wasn't exactly a comfortable sleeping position. "I think it's time to lie back down," he whispered to her.

Emma nodded sleepily and, in yet another miracle for the ages, let Charming tuck her in. He slid the pillows back down so they were lying flat and waited until his daughter rested her head on them before pulling the multitude of blankets up around her shoulders. Emma just barely managed a good night smile at her father before her eyes drifted closed.

He stayed until her breathing evened out again. Then he stood and, working off the courage the embrace had given him, bent down to press a soft good night kiss to his baby girl's forehead. When she smiled in her sleep at the gesture, the thought struck him again: I could have lost her tonight.

And as he switched off her lamp and turned to head back down the stairs, he realized that there were no words to truly express how relieved and grateful he was that he hadn't.