A/N: This is the second story in the Reluctant Adventures of Emma Mills series. An AU in which Emma never made it to the wardrobe, and instead she was taken and raised by Regina in Storybrooke. The first story in the series Justice is Blind can be found in my other stories and takes place approximately over the course of season 1. This begins "season 2" but departs from canon events almost immediately.
Emma was trying to get dressed and get her bearings about her. She'd woken up in the hospital, with people talking about a cursed apple turnover. She was a rational woman, a professional with a responsible job and two ivy league degrees, it wasn't easy to just accept that the town you grew up in was populated by fairy tale characters. That apparently you were a fairy tale character.
The daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, stolen at birth and raised by the Evil Queen.
Mary Margaret Blanchard... Snow White... no she really couldn't think about it that way, at least not yet, was talking excitedly about how they had to find her father. All Emma wanted to do was go home and lock herself away and hope she'd wake up in the morning from a truly weird dream.
But her mother, or the woman who wanted desperately to be her mother, followed after her. There was a surreal encounter with the seven dwarfs and even Leroy was nice'ish to her. Apparently being Snow White's daughter outweighed how many times she'd prosecuted him for drunk and disorderly conduct.
She was actually finding the hug from David Nolan that he didn't seem to want to let go weirdly reassuring when they saw the lynch mob.
The others began debating letting her mother be killed, but Emma reacted immediately. "Henry, I need you to go to Granny's and stay there."
"But Mom..."
"I am not taking you with me while I stop your grandmother from being lynched."
She noticed Mary Margaret wince.
She stopped by her house on the way to pick up her shot gun and she got to the house on Mifflin Street just as Dr. Whale had Regina against the wall.
The clack-clack of shot gun drew the attention of some of the crowd. The shot she fired into her mother's rose bush drew everyone else's. "Get your hands off her or you'll find out exactly how good your colleagues are at taking buck shot out of your probably dead body."
She leveled the shot gun and moved through the crowd until she was standing between them and Regina.
Her mother seemed to regain confidence and stood tall behind her as if this was some sort of mayoral event. Was that a regal bearing? Was she really a queen? She held her ground and Mary Margaret came rushing up to stand beside her.
"We all want answers, but Regina's death isn't going to provide any!"
Emma was perfectly willing to let her talk the crowd down but she kept her shot gun leveled.
"Why is she protecting her? She's your daughter."
Mary Margaret had the tact not to answer for her. "Regina needs to be locked up," she glanced at Emma, "For her safety, and for ours."
Emma went along with it but mostly because it made the crowd start to calm down and disburse.
"Thank you, Emma..." Regina said quietly after they were gone.
"Don't think I'm still not pissed as hell."
"You wouldn't be you if you weren't."
Once they put Regina behind bars, her... parents?... stayed after Emma said she refused to leave her alone with half the town trying to kill her.
"Emma, you need to understand. Regina took you out of my arms... she's almost certainly got plans for you."
"Yes. Plans. Like sending me to the finest universities in the world and helping me when I was stupid enough to get pregnant while still in school. Evil."
"You don't understand Emma, she's a murder hundreds of times over."
"In some fairytale land but not here. Here she's the mayor of a small town, and I'm justice in this town. You aren't locking her up on your say so." She wasn't even sure she could accept the idea that her mother murdered anyone. But she felt a little like she was talking to crazy people. All of them.
"She is right Emma. I have killed a lot of people."
The three of them turned around and stared at Regina in the cell. "Though so have your... parents. We come from a violent world."
"No. No you don't get to pretend that we're like you!"
David launched himself at the bars before Mary Margaret caught him. "She's baiting you. Emma, you have to listen to us ..."
"No I don't."
"We're your parents."
"No. No we're going to stop this right now."
She angrily pointed at the jail cell. "You, you don't get to act like everything is normal because it sure as hell isn't." And she turned towards the woman apparently her own age, "And you don't get to waltz into my life and suddenly act like my mother. I don't need mothering, I'm 28 fucking years old, and have a child of my own. Not to mention the minor fact that I already have a mother. One I'm royally pissed at, at the moment, but a mother none the less."
Mary Margaret's heart looked like it was broken in a million pieces and behind Emma Regina smiled widely.