Prompt One: Something real that isn't featured in a lot of fics.

It's unmistakable, the familiar shiver of recognition that tingled at the back of Emma's head. One moment she was shifting her eyes around the book store, surveying the people around her in an attempt to pass the time until Henry finally picked the book he wanted to read. Her eyes had been drawn to the brunette at the counter who was shifting around in her bag, swearing up and down to the hipster man behind the counter that her card couldn't be declined "because she had just paid it off yesterday".

Emma was no stranger to the situation herself. There was a time not too long ago when the idea of dropping $15 or so dollars on a new book was akin to buying Mercedes for most other people. She knew it was rude to stare so she grabbed a book, any book, off the closest shelf and pretending to be reading it while stealing glances at the woman at the counter and debating whether it would be more or less embarrassing for other woman if she over there and offered to settle the bill. Emma knew pride and understood that in times like that the line between a person's kindness and their pity was incredibly fine and nothing was worse than pity.

When the woman flicked her head around the store, for a reason Emma did not know, and the two women's eyes met each other a sense of recognition hit Emma in the face like a brick wall.

Lily.

Shit. She turned back to the book shelf. Okay, maybe Lily hadn't recognized her. It had been over a decade since they last saw each other after all. Right before Henry was born back when Neal was still in her life and Emma was still on the wrong side of the law.

Emma looked around for Henry, thinking maybe she could grab him and dart out of the store before Lily remembered who she was. She spotted the boy looking engrossed in the classics section on the other side of the store. Dammit.

Maybe if she cut through the back aisles and made a left at the counter then she could –

"Emma? Emma Swan? Is that you?" A familiar voice called out. Emma froze in her footsteps, cringing for a moment. Of course Lily noticed her. It was stupid to think she wouldn't. Emma plastered a smile on her face and turned in her heels.

"Hey. Lily? I..I didn't to expect to see you here in New York." Emma said through a half-hearted smile.

"Yeah, well. It's a small world." Lily said, her eyes raking over Emma's person."Well, look at you, Emma Swan. All shiny and decked out in red leather. Never thought I'd see the day. And looks like you've ditched the glasses."

Emma refused to flinch at Lily's judging eyes. She plastered a dead eyed stare and small smile on toher face and looked for a way out of this conversation.

"You know how it is, Lily. Things change."

"But people don't. No matter how much they may want to."

The two women stared at each other. Each daring the other to back down or bite or do anything to break this standoff.

In the end, neither of them had to. Henry approached his mom, with several backs piled up in his hands.

"Hey, mom. I found the book I need. Oh, and a couple of others and I know what you're going to say but… mom?" Henry stopped talking, only now noticing that his mother was trapped in a death stare with a brunette in-front of her. Henry looked at Lily with a frown. "Mom, who is this?"

Emma smiled at Henry tightly. "No one, kid. How about you get started ringing those books up, I'll be with you in a sec."

Henry looked between Emma and Lily skeptically, his feet staying planted on the ground.

"No one, huh? That's who I am to you?" Lily said in a low voice, laced with a sardonic tone. For a moment she looked hurt. She bit her bottom lip for a second before a cruel smirk spread across her face. "So this is your kid? Never thought I'd see the day you were driving a soccer van and going to PTA meetings." Lily turned to Henry.

"You know, kid, the last time I saw your mom, I was dropping her off out front of this old, semi-legal abortion clinic in the middle of nowhere, promising to pick her up in an hour. Do you remember that, Ems?" She said, shooting her eyes over to Emma before returning to Henry.

"After that, your mommy ran off with my boyfriend. How old are you, kid?"

"fourteen."

Lily nodded her head and looked at Emma.

"Yep, that would be about right."

Emma clasped a hand on Henry's shoulder. "Henry. Go." She ordered. With a light push on his back Henry shuffled towards the register. The frown on his face evidence that Lily's words were having the desired effect on him.

Emma grasped tightly onto Lily's bicep. She yanked the woman closer to her.

"Stay away from me and stay away from my son." She whispered into the woman's ear.

Lily indicated her head over to the line at the front of the store, where Henry is noticeably absent.

"Looks like I am not the one he is trying to get away from."

Emma pushes Lily's arm back to her roughly, and as Lily rubs away the finger marks she left behind, Emma runs out of the store and looks up and down the street.

"Henry?" she yells

TBC.