A/N: Characters not my own. AU. Based around season 6. Let me know what you think.

Chapter 1: The Dancer

There weren't any auditoriums in Storybrooke. Yet, Regina, no, the Evil Queen, found herself sitting in one. She was the only one in the audience. Front row. Great view of the soloist onstage. A girl and she was dancing.

The dancer wasn't a native of Storybrooke. And Regina was sure she'd never seen her before. Her recall of faces was impeccable. The girl couldn't be older than Henry. Give or take, a few years younger. And she danced around a crib. How odd? Regina assumed it was a prop for the dancer's routine. Until the baby inside started crying.

The dancer, facing away from her one member audience, faltered in her steps. When she finally turned, her white costume was covered in blood. And her eyes, once locked with the Evil Queen's, burned with fire. The dancer held her gaze and screamed.

"Mom, are you okay?" Henry's concerned voice pulled Regina from her thoughts.

She'd asked Henry if she could walk him to school that morning. To her surprise, he agreed. On the way, they stopped at Granny's for breakfast. Snow was there with baby Neal. His cranky cries had reminded Regina of her dream.

"Yes, Henry. I'm fine." Regina said. "Just thinking?

"Something you wanna talk about?"

"It's nothing, really. Just a…weird dream."

Henry shrugged. Changing the subject to an upcoming math exam. When they made it, Regina hugged him. Henry waved goodbye and ran off with his friends. Regina smiled at him. He was growing so fast, that boy. It seemed like just yesterday he was her little baby.

It was a beautiful day. No clouds. Just blue sky and the sun. The temperature wasn't too bad either. But as Regina walked to her office in Town Hall she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was about to happen. She shrugged that feeling off as she walked into her office.

Regina sat down at her desk.

Emma and David were done checking in with the dwarves. Laughing at some dumb joke that Sneezy told as they walked back to the sheriff's car. Each of them had a hand on a door, Emma's open, when a girl fell from the sky.

A portal in the sky.

Nonetheless, she did fall.

"What the hell was that?" Emma asked.

"I think you mean who." David said.

Father and daughter took off towards the woods. Grumpy trailed not too far behind. They found her a few feet west of the Leaving Storybrooke sign. A young girl lay among leaves and branches. David checked her pulse.

"Call an ambulance!" he called. "She's still alive."

"Who is she?" Emma asked.

"No idea."

Regina found Emma, Hook, Snow, and Charming in the waiting room. She'd gotten Swan's frantic phone call no later than five minutes after sitting down at her desk.

"What do we know?" she asked.

"Not much." Snow answered. "Whale took her right into surgery."

Twenty minutes later, Emma and Hook had gone to check in on a disturbance at Granny's. David went to get coffee. Snow sat quietly next to Regina. She wanted to ask her something. Regina could tell by the way she kept glancing in her direction. She almost called her on it when Dr. Whale, not in surgery anymore, walked over.

"Dr. Whale?" Snow asked. "Is she-?"

"Dead? No."

Regina and Snow both breathed a sigh of relief.

"But, I don't understand." Regina said. "She fell… from the sky."

"And broke her neck." Whale said. "She should be dead but her body healed itself."

"What?"

"Like magic?" Snow asked.

Dr. Whale nodded. "But she is still unconscious."

"Can we see her?"

"Follow me."

David was catching up when Regina and Snow entered the room. Regina stood frozen in the doorway. The girl in the bed was the dancer from her dream. Her hair was down instead of the tight bun. But it was the same nose, same mouth. A perfectly symmetrical face.

"Here she is." Whale said. "The girl who fell from the sky."

Snow's sharp intake of breath stole Regina's attention. "I think I know her."

tbc