Chapter Rating: T for now. I do like to swear and all manners of violence so that could change :D
Warnings: The Beards are not treated too kindly in this fic.
Summary: Emma just moved to a small town where she's Sheriff. Regina is the bank manager and Storybrook Savings and Loan. On the day that Emma and her son are in the bank, just like they do every Monday, something wholly unbelievable happens; the bank is robbed.
Notes: I don't want to give away too much, so if I share the prompt in it's entirety it'll give away a bit of the plot and I don't want that. Thank you for the Swen that gave me this prompt. I'm having a lot of fun coming up with the plot. I'm thinking this'll be maybe five or so chapters. Maybe more. But we'll start with five and see how it goes.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, or whatever the hell else. They belong to Disney, ABC etc, etc, I claim no rights to copyrighted material, and this story is purely for entertainment purposes.

"Mom… Mom… Mom…"

"Ignoring you kid."

Sheriff Emma Swan loved her son. She loved her son more than life itself but he did not know the meaning of 'take a chill pill.' Probably because that phrase was dated when she was a child and it was carbon dated now that she had one of her own. Nonetheless, he seriously needed to calm down. Emma would have told him to 'Enhance his calm,' but the last time she said that he said she couldn't watch Demolition Man for a month. Which was a shame because Demolition Man the greatest action movie of all time. Next to Die Hard and A Long Kiss Goodnight which aren't so much action movies, as they are the greatest Christmas films of all time.

"Mom, but she's here."

Emma didn't look up from her deposit slip when she asked. "Who's here?"

"Ms. Mills."

"That's nice, kid."

She said it so fast she didn't really hear him until a moment later. Then Emma's head shot up quickly. She had first spoken to Regina Mills when she first got here. Regina was the branch manager at the major bank in town - well, the only bank in town. Storybrooke was small; not a lot of town to be had around here. Which was why Emma loved it. It was a nice change of pace from working Major Cases in Boston. Henry thought so too. In fact, he had adjusted better than her mother had.

"You should talk to her, mom," Henry told her.

Emma frowned. "I've talked to her."

He rolled his eyes. "But I mean like ask her to be your friend."

"Ask her to be my friend?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"Just like that."

"Yeah. You're always telling me I'd like it here better if I made friends. Well I do because I did. You should too."

Emma smiled. "Using my own logic against me. Well-played. You sure you want to be a writer and not a politician?"

The kid made a face. "Blech. No. To quote V for Vendetta, 'Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.' So no thank you."

The small town Sheriff chuckled. "So much for your pop-pop's dream of having a Swan in the White House."

"I'll have more bestsellers than Stephen King," Henry proclaimed. "Pop-pop will just have to settle for that."

The kid was smart for his age. Too smart for his own good. However, and this could be the rose-colored mom goggles Emma was looking through, but he wore it well. A tiny genius. Her tiny genius.

"Mom, go talk to her."

"Talk to who, kid?"

"Mom."

"What?"

He frowned and then grabbed the bridge of his nose. Which was something his grandmother did and not one of Emma's moves. "God, mom. You are hopeless."

Maybe she was. But Emma couldn't date lightly. She was a single mother, married to her career. It wasn't an easy sell for any potential suitor. It was like stepping into a premade family. And it took a special kind of person to want that, let alone sign up for it. Henry's father couldn't do it and he had a hand in creating the kid. It was his loss. However, it left Emma apprehensive about dating. It was just as well, she liked their life as it was. Adding someone to this would just be a whole can of worms she didn't want to open. No matter how much her mother was pushing her to date.

"Your G-Ma put you up to this, didn't she?" Emma asked, giving her son a pointed look.

Henry's eyes drifted to the floor. "No."

"Lie detector, Henry."

He huffed. "Yes. But only because she thinks you're not happy."

"So recruiting my kid to be her dwarven matchmaker is ok because her heart was in the right place?" Emma shook her head. "Don't answer that. I'll ask your G-Ma. And then she could explain her reasoning to my face."

Henry gave her an admonishing look. "Mom… Don't be hard on G-Ma. She only thinks you're not happy because I told her I thought you were lonely." Again he mimicked her mother by holding up her hand before she could object. "Mom, I know you're scared because my dad sucks and he left us. But the next person might not leave. And you'd be happier, I know you would, if you had someone. Because we're share a common ancestor with apes and primates are social creatures who form mating pairs in order to survive. It's biology, Mom. We need people or we get sad."

See. Too smart for his own good.

"What are you watching and/or reading, kid?" Emma asked, aghast at 90% of what he just said. The remaining 10% was cute. But not something a ten year should concern himself with.

"Some stuff by Jane Goodall," he replied. "And the Brothers' Grimm fables. It's been a weird reading month."

That brought back her smile and she ruffled his hair with her hands. "That's my creepily intelligent kid that I love and adore."

"Well, isn't that the most adorable thing you ever did see…"

If the sensation of ice water running down a person's back could make a sound, it would be extremely similar to the sound of that man's voice. On instinct, Emma stepped between that voice and her son. She didn't take the man for an abuser of children. Not that child predators had a certain look. It's just that two years in Special Victims taught Emma a thing or two about that kind of evil. Not to say this man wasn't bad, he just wasn't that flavor of bad.

He was a tall, slender, not muscular or athletic. Dark hair with icy blue eyes. She didn't recognize him and Storybrooke was small enough that she knew everyone by face at least. He always wasn't dressed like anyone else in town. He was wearing black jeans, boots, a dark blue button up and a black leather coat. He wouldn't have looked out of place in Boston or New York but this was a small town in Maine. This guy stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Thank you," Emma said with a slight nod.

"Anytime, love. I do so adore showering pretty woman such as yourself with compliments," he told her. His accent didn't sit right with her either. He was trying too hard for Received Pronunciation; 'The Queen's English.' However, and it didn't happen with every word but toward the end there was a hint of something that Emma couldn't quite place. Irish? Scottish, maybe? He could very well be from Liverpool and the Sheriff would have been none the wiser. Still, there was something about him that she didn't like.

"There's no need for a shower," Emma replied, silently adding, Maybe after this is done to get the ick of this conversation off of me.

"Too bad," he said and then got in line.

Emma watched him for a moment until Henry got her attention.

"That was weird," he commented.

She nodded. "Yeah, kid. Totally weird."

The Sheriff glanced around for a moment. She didn't know why but her gut told her it was the right thing to do. The smart call. Maybe she was being paranoid. Being an ex detective from Boston didn't exactly prepare her to be a Sheriff in a town whose last murder was in 1964. She has been called to round up a dalmatian, Pongo who kept busting out of his owner's yard, more times in the last four months then she ever had to investigate a robbery back in Boston. Nonetheless, training and intuition told her to be safe rather than sorry.

Emma counted at least two more unfamiliar faces. A large man with a curly dark mane and beard to match. And a shorter fellow who had a Marine's haircut but not the bearings of one.

This wasn't right.

"Sheriff Swan? Is everything alright?"

Emma almost didn't register who was talking to her until it was already too late to think something graceful and engaging to say. Instead she went with, "What? Huh? Oh… No. I mean, yes! Everything's fine. How are you, Ms. Mills?"

Emma loved this woman's smile. It was radiant. She was radiant. The Sheriff was convinced she had found the perfect woman. The perfect woman who, knowing Emma's luck, wouldn't be into women. Which was a shame because this woman was beautiful. Thick black hair that she kept short; barely touching her shoulders. Dark brown eyes that if you asked Emma were the color of fossilized tree resin. It didn't matter. Emma told herself not to try because there was just no way, a woman like this was into women and if she was, Emma wasn't her type.

"I'm fine, thank you, Sheriff," the other woman said. "But we've been over this. Please, call me Regina."

Emma smiled. "Yes, and I remember that. And if I recall, I also asked you to start calling me, 'Emma,' Reggie."

"Regina," the dark haired woman corrected with a grin. "And you are right, Emma."

"I usually am," the Sheriff replied. "And if I'm not, I've got the kid here to fact-check, me."

"She's wrong a lot," Henry added.

"Hey now, Benedict Arnold!" Emma scoffed with mock indignation.

Henry shrugged. "It had to be done."

The bank manager covered her mouth to hide her laughter but Emma noticed it. "Don't encourage him, Regina."

That only made her smile wider. "Don't encourage true genius? Sheriff, I didn't think that would be your stance. I thought honesty was the best policy and admitting one's own shortcomings is an admirable thing."

Emma's face flushed as she stammered. "Um - Well, if that's the case, the kid is right. I am wrong a lot of the time."

Regina shook her head but this time she did audibly laugh. However it was distraction tactic because the very next thing she asked was, "So why were you looking around the back? You're not thinking of robbing it, are you Sheriff?"

"I wasn't the casing the joint, Regina. I just saw a few new faces," Emma told her. "I know I've only been in town a few months…"

Regina understood completely and she stepped in close, real close. "The three men? The big one, the annoying one, and the one that won't stop flirting as a means of communication?"

"Yes," she affirmed. "But it's probably nothing. Just a bit of paranoia from working Major Cases. You see a robbery everywhere. It's just me jumping at shadows."

"Perhaps," Regina agreed. "Besides, I think you're forgetting something, Emma."

"And what's that?"

The bank manager's lips curled in a devilish smile. "No one steals from my bank."

Emma would have said something more but her attention was pulled toward the entrance when a newcomer came through the doors. The four in just a span of 15 minutes. He was medium build. And unlike the pretty boy, he worked out. Probably something light. But he had the toned body of someone that had seen the inside of a gym once or twice. He had mousy brown hair and a beard that was well manicured and kept short. He was wearing a puffy coat. Something too hot for the weather outside unless he had a condition.

This couldn't be right.

And almost as if Emma had summoned it the newcomer, spoke, "Everyone get down on the ground, now. This is a robbery."

Thank you for reading. And you can give me a follow on tumblr where I am Murderously Adorkable.

I'm going to be working on this fict as well as trying to finally finish Strange Bedfellows (for anything reading that) before working on Disenchanted and finishing Prodigal Son. I will be continuing more of SQW ficts. Those are just the ficts that I've been working on forever and they need to be finished. Like omg.