Chapter One:

Present Day

All around me people talk away, their voices gradually becoming louder and louder as they come closer to me. Couples walk around the large hall, their eyes flicking over the children around them who are all smiling widely, trying to conjure up some happiness in their sad lives.

I don't play up to the prospective parents that are circling the room like they are reviewing antiques, and instead slump further into my chair and narrow my eyes. My social worker is sighing at the sight of me being so antisocial, and I return an icy glare. My hands fidget in my lap, a nervous habit I guess, and I try my best to control them.

A woman with short brown hair laughs a little too loudly near me, and I cast a snide look at her which shuts her up. She continues to talk to a younger child who is showing her pictures and toys; I can understand the charm of adopting a toddler. They're so young they barely remember a thing- almost undamaged goods. Older kids like me are thrown to the bottom of the pile, no one wants a problem kid.

"Maya, you need to talk to some people. The only way you'll get adopted is if someone warms to you," my social worker says to me quietly and under her breath, maintaining her artificial smile.

To humour her, I pull a disturbing grin and she just rolls her eyes before going to find someone else to harass. She's okay, but she's far too nosey for her own good. When I arrived that fateful day, she bombarded me with questions that I simply couldn't answer.

"Not a fan of these things?" A soft voice asks from behind me and I turn around to see a woman, and a man who I believe to be her husband.

Her hair is scraped up in a ponytail which gives her face a maternal softness, and she's smiling at me while waiting for some answer. The man next to her is also smiling, but I can sense his awkwardness. He has slightly long hair for a man, and kind eyes.

"I'm not great at socialising," I reply back, unsure of why this couple has singled me out of the huge crowd of people.

"I'm not sure I'd want to socialise with some of the people in here," the woman grins mischievously at me, and I smile slightly at her attempt at slight humour, "I'm Regina Mills, and this is my husband Robin Locksley."

"Maya," I give back a monosyllabic answer, feeling slightly overwhelmed by all this new information.

"Well Dear, do you mind if we talk for a while? I'd really like to get to know you better… We'd both like to get to know you better," there's something about her presence that makes me feel calm, but I can't put my finger on what it is.

My dorm room is full of people gossiping about the eventful day while I sit on my bed and try to absorb myself in a book. Nicole and Keith talked to me for hours, they were in fact the last couple to leave. Some girls glare at me, but I simply ignore them and continue to read, getting lost in a mystical world.

"I don't know why he Mayor of storybrooke, Regina Mills, wanted to talk to that brat," one of them whispers a little too loudly, and everyone's eyes fall on me.

Regina Mills? How did they know her name? I feel utterly confused, and also embarrassed; there is something I don't know, and that bugs me immensely. I had been banned from watching television as a child, and never cared much for it anyway. I was much more content to picture fictional characters, but this led me to feel slightly socially excluded from people.

Leaving the room to a chorus of snickers, I make my way to the computer room which I rarely visit. I don't like to know about the outside world, it just depresses me. Typing cautiously in the words 'Regina Mills', I wait for the slow computer to load. There she is, the woman I talked to today, smiling beside her husband in a photo.

She looks radiant, but I prefer her without all the makeup. Today she looked so approachable, so homely, whereas in the pictures in front of me she looks intimidatingly beautiful. This new discover only confuses me even more; why does a Hollywood star want to have anything to do with me?

Laying in bed, I stare up at the bunk above me and listen to the heavy breathing of the girls around me. I don't cry much anymore, I've become used to the pain that fills my body. My fingers gingerly stroke the scars on my legs, some of them self inflicted… Some not. Closing my eyes, I try to picture Regina's face again. She was smiling so much, kindness seeping out of every orifice. I'm not used to seeing people with life left in their eyes, everyone around me seems to be so dead. Or at least wishing they were.