Reunion

Author's Note: Well here is my second attempt at a longer fan fiction. It was something I started a while ago, so hopefully I can pick it back up and do it justice.

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters within this story and some lines and scenes were taken from the actual show.

Chapter 1:

High school! Bah! Emma stared down at her phone in disgust. The committee actually emailed her an invite to her ten year high school reunion. Like anyone there ever cared what happened to the poor, orphaned, friendless girl that she used to be. Hell, she had only attended Storybrooke High for two years. The last two years. Two of the worst years of her life if you didn't count the six months after graduation running from the law while believing she was in love and the eighteen months after in jail as a result. Fucking, Neal! If it hadn't been for him she would have never served that time. She had only retrieved his damn watches from the locker. He stole them and she served his time. Breathe, Swan!

Storybrooke, the name itself was almost a curse in her book. The town where strangers found her as an infant and put her in the foster system. Storybrooke, the town where the movie Mean Girls looked like child's play. Yeah, maybe her high school experience was more in line with Carrie. Emma had certainly felt like offing a few of the girls who had made her hard life before coming to town look like a fairytale.

Milah, was the worst. Her and her group of cheerleader friends tormented her at every opportunity. It was like Emma had a bull's-eye on her back from the moment she stepped into the building. Everyday they had a new sort of evil plan to ruin her day. It was a game to them. A game they were determined to win. Oh, Emma had dealt with bullies before, what child in the foster system hadn't, but these girls brought it to a whole new level. Emma shuddered just thinking of all the things she experienced at their hands. A girl with a lot less strength would have like committed suicide to get out of it. Emma told herself every day that there was only a few more days before she would finally be able to leave. If it hadn't been for Johanna, one of the kindest foster mothers Emma had actually known, she might have run off. Emma couldn't do that to her, so she stayed up until the day of graduation. She never walked down the aisle to accept her diploma, she had Johanna mail it to her in Boston because she left on that morning's bus out of town.

That was where she met Neal. Neal Cassidy. Another curse word in Emma's book. They had traveled the country in the yellow Volkswagen bettle they had both manage to steal. Him from the original owner and her from him, though technically she had kidnapped him too, since he was in the car when she stole it. It was in Portland, Oregon when he left her and ran off after she retrieve twenty grand of watches he had stolen. They had just had a discussion of retiring from a life of crime and moving to Tallahassee when he brought up the watches. She thought that if she got them back for him they could finally be together and be a family.

Family, another bad word. It made her wish for things. Things she could never have, because life seemed to laugh at her when she reached for them.

Damnit, she needed to stop thinking of all of these things. She just needed to put all of it behind her and move on with her life like she always had. Emma swiped a tear from her eye. It didn't make sense that she would cry for things that she never got to have. It wasn't like she could miss them, if she never had them to begin with.

Emma threw her phone into the passenger seat of the yellow Beetle. The last thing she ever got from Neal. Well, not the last, but those were the last thoughts she needed on this already melancholy day. She had to get to her date with the perp she needed to collect. She had already wasted three weeks on this guy, she was not about to waste any more time.

Emma's feet were killing her. She shoved her key into the lock of her apartment door, trying to balance the cupcake box in her arm. It had been such a long day already and here it was almost midnight. She shook her shoes off and tiptoed to the kitchen area of her apartment, slamming the door behind her.

The perp had been collected after a chase in her stiletto heels. Luckily, she had thought ahead and had a boot placed on his car so he couldn't get away. But getting a big fat check on her birthday was at least cause for celebration, if not for the birthday itself. What was there to really celebrate? Just another year to be by herself.

Emma grabbed the lone box of birthday candles from the drawer and placed one in the frosting of the cupcake she had bought. She lit it and watched it burn for just a few seconds.

"Another banner year." Emma couldn't have been more depressed with her life if she tried. However, that didn't keep her from making a wish that she hadn't made in a very long time.

Wish I didn't have to spend any more birthdays alone. She blew out the candle and stared down at the tiny cake. Yeah, right.

Emma started when she heard the knock at her door. Who the hell could that be?

She walked over and opened it. There was no one there. She looked around and then looked down. There was a young boy there with a backpack and a rather large book.

"Are you Emma Swan?"

"Yes."

"Hi. I'm Henry. I'm your son." The kid pushed his way past her and entered her apartment without ever being invited in.

"I don't have a son," she told him as she looked outside once again. Surely this kid didn't come here by himself.

"Did you give a baby up for adoption ten years ago?"

Emma closed the door and followed him in. "Well. Yes."

The kid just gave her a look similar to her own that said, Hello, told you.

"Wait here." Emma turned and ran for her bathroom. She slammed the door behind her and slid down its solid surface. She heard him ask through the wood, "Got any juice? Never mind, I found it."

Emma took some long deep breaths. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Not after she just made a wish. This kind of thing did not happen to people like her, but apparently it was happening because she could hear the kid rummaging around her kitchen. Could this kid really be the boy that she gave up for adoption in prison all those years ago? Neal's son. The boy she couldn't even look at, because she gave birth to him handcuffed to a bed. What kind of life would that have been? No, she gave him away because this way he could have a chance at a better life than she did. Though she herself had been just a babe when she was put in the system.

Damnit. She was going to have to face him and find out where he belonged. He didn't belong with her. Not anymore. Not ever. She was too young to be a mother back then, and now she was… She was too set in her ways to change. Too cynical. Too lost.