Dreaming Myself Awake

by rosetylerrox

Emma and Henry are living happily ever after in New York, but their strangely perfect lives are about to be interrupted by an unexpected visitor who talks about the woman in Emma's dreams as if she's real...and in serious danger. What follows is a tale of true love (SQ), epic battles and a truly terrible sex ed class. WARNINGS: Brief references to attempted suicide and past abuse.

1. Prologue

She was dreaming again. She couldn't remember when it had started, because the dream seemed to stretch back through her memories, even infecting those of her childhood in the foster system and her time in prison. She could've sworn that there'd been nights with Neal where she'd woken up with a name on her lips that wasn't his.

"My gift to you…" A hand grips hers and brown eyes stare sadly back at her. It didn't feel like she was receiving a gift – it felt like a sacrifice.

"MOM!" Emma's eyes snapped open. As a mother of a twelve-year-old boy, she was already used to having her sleep interrupted and she responded to his voice with an immediacy borne of experience. She remembered his cries from the day he was born, and how he'd quieted as soon as he'd been placed in her arms. Not a day went by where she didn't feel some small joy at the fact that she had changed her mind and kept him, despite all the trials she knew they would face due to the fact that she was an ex-con and a high school dropout. She made it work. She got her GED and pushed herself through police academy in Boston, eventually moving to NYC when she got promoted to deputy sheriff in the New York City Sheriff's Office. There were days when she couldn't believe that she'd landed the job: the pay was good and she'd managed to get a great apartment for her and her son to live in.

"Mom, somebody was at the door." Her eyes flicked to her bedside alarm clock.

"It's fricking 8:15 am on a Sunday, Henry. Who the hell was it?" He rolled his eyes at her – he'd always been a morning person. God knows where he got that from.

"I don't know. They just left this." He pointed over to a basket of dark red apples on the kitchen table and Emma's heart rate sped up for a second. She got a weird sense of déjà vu but couldn't put a finger on why. "There's a note," he continued, handing a small slip of folded white paper to her with her name written in cursive on one side. She opened it.

"My gift to you…"

And then Emma freaked the hell out. She dropped the note on the floor and placed a hand over her racing heart and uttered a single word: "Regina…"