Author's Note: Hi, this is my first fanfic. Please let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!
Disclaimer: Don't own OUAT or the characters.
Chapter One
Emma Swan was good at finding people.
When she was 10 her foster brother disappeared from the front yard. The police search turned up nothing until Emma herself found the boy hiding in a drain clear across town two days later. She hadn't been able to explain to the police how she'd found the boy and her foster parents had been suspicious of her involvement. They'd sent her back to the group home after that.
When she was 17 she'd been sent to juvie where she'd taken computer courses ostensibly for "bettering herself" for a career when she got out. Instead, she'd secretly set up an online tracking service where people paid her (well) to trace the electronic trails of their cheating spouses and long lost relatives. She'd gotten away with it despite the watchful security - no one suspected the pregnant girl.
Her son was born at 2:17 on a Wednesday morning at the local hospital where she'd been given two days leave from the facility. She'd gotten to spend a precious two weeks with her baby boy while the adoption was still being processed. His presence made her rather popular back inside, though she hadn't bothered to form friendships previously. She'd wanted her son all to herself while she could, despite intending to sever all connection to him shortly. She'd tried not to get too attached, but it was impossible when his every cry and wiggle rent her heart. In the end she'd screwed up her resolve and signed him away, hoping to give him a better chance in life than she'd had. A better chance than she could give him.
"I'm just gonna make sure he's ok", Emma promised herself, gripping the steering wheel tighter as she navigated her yellow VW bug along a deserted Maine highway. Once she'd walked out of juvie, she'd turned her back on her old life of theft and scraping by, intending to start afresh even though she had nothing but a hippy car and a pocket full of cash. Finding out where her baby boy had been adopted to had been a piece of cake with her usual online tricks. Needing to see for herself that he would be fine had nagged at her constantly since he'd left her arms. She didn't want to take him back, nor even to meet him. Really. She just wanted to know that he'd ended up with a family who loved him.
"Storybrooke? You have got to be kidding me." Emma shook her head at the cutesy name.
The car's headlights floated over the town sign and she took a quick glance at the map resting on the passenger seat.
The next thing Emma knew she was waking up behind bars.
"I wasn't drunk." Emma raised an eyebrow, slouching against the bars of the holding cell.
"I know - I checked". The scruffy looking Sheriff with the strange accent turned the key in the lock and ushered her out like she was a date not a convict.
"But you did destroy our historic sign. An offense which carries a bit of a hefty price tag I'm afraid."
Lame, scoffed Emma inwardly. Apparently she'd spun out on the road, hit her head on the steering wheel and knocked over the stupid town sign. Batting her eyelashes hadn't convinced the Sheriff into letting it slide, so she'd thrown him a few hundreds with another sarcastic eyeroll for good measure just to get out of there.
Still wearing yesterday's clothes and desperate for caffeine, Emma quickly located a diner in the main street. She entered and sank gratefully into a booth in the back. A young woman with red-streaked hair a few years older than her (and wearing far fewer clothes) came over to take her order.
"Hi, I'm Ruby. Hot chocolate will just be a sec," the red-haired girl said, a little flirtatiously, before disappearing behind the counter.
Emma flipped open the file she'd compiled on her 'case' and scanned it for the millionth time. Baby boy, 3 weeks old, adopted by single mother Regina Mills, 32, Mayor of Storybrooke, Maine. Walking down the street, Emma had been comforted by the sight of Storybrooke in the daytime. It seemed like a quiet little town. Quaint to the point of being boring, but nice enough for raising a child. And safe.
Her hackles had been raised by the complete lack of information about the adoptive mother though. She'd obtained the original adoption application but all other paperwork had been curiously missing. The mother had no online records either - no birth certificate, no driver's licence in any other state, never had a bank account or loan, never flown interstate or overseas, never rented a property... the adoptive mother was completely off the grid.
This Regina Mills was, however, mayor of this ass-backwards little town. Surely a town official constantly in the public eye couldn't get away with too much, Emma reasoned. But she intended to find out for sure, even if she had to resort to spying, blackmail or bribery to do it.
"You're new here, aren't you?"
Emma quickly closed the file and looked up at a young woman with a black pixie cut, smiling openly at her from beside the booth.
"Oh, uh, no I'm just passing through." Emma pressed her lips together, hoping to end the conversation there.
"Ok, well, enjoy your stay. Storybrooke is lovely this time of year." Pixie Cut shrugged with a smile, looking a little disappointed at the brushoff.
Emma immediately felt guilty as the woman turned to go. "Wait. Why don't you sit with me."
Seeing Pixie Cut's face light up, Emma almost regretted the invitation afraid that she'd attracted the attention of the town loner and would never escape. The woman slid into the booth and meekly introduced herself as Mary Margaret Blanchard. (What the hell kinda name is that? thought Emma.) The waitress, Ruby, sauntered over with Emma's order and another hot chocolate with cinnamon for Mary Margaret. Apparently, everyone ordered the same thing around here. Weird.
"Sooooo, Storybrooke's nice. The kinda place everyone knows everyone right? I bet you even know the mayor huh?" Emma cringed inwardly at her transparent questioning but she doubted the naive-looking schoolteacher across from her would suspect she was fishing for info.
"Mayor Mills? I've only met her a few times. I don't think she liked me that much." Mary Margaret said sheepishly.
"What's she like?"
"Strict. Standoffish. Keeps to herself a lot. I mean, apart from official town business. She is a politician after all - but she's a great mayor", added Mary Margaret hastily, fearing that she'd sounded too harsh.
"Bet she runs a pretty tight ship then," said Emma.
Mary Margaret nodded, taking a sip of her chocolate. "Everything runs like clockwork around here. Except the actual clock of course."
"Uh huh." Emma raised her eyebrows at what was obviously a local joke. She'd passed the clock tower over the library on her way in. Apparently Storybrooke was eternally experiencing 8:15.
"Is she married? Any kids?" asked Emma, trying to sound offhand.
"The mayor? Oh yes, she has a little baby boy, a few months old."
"Must be hard as a single working mom."
"I guess so. Being away from your child must be the worst thing imaginable." Mary Margaret raised her mug again, looking thoughtful.
Emma felt a pang at that. She wanted to grill her companion more, but she didn't want to seem overly interested in the mayor's personal life in case it tipped her off. This was a small town after all. People talked, and those in power generally had ears everywhere. But Mary Margaret's info had given Emma something to go on. Her baby had been adopted by a tough single mom. Strangely, Emma would've loved to have had a strict parent as a child - at least a strict parent cared enough to lay down the law on TV and homework. Not like the cash-checkers under whose indifferent parenting Emma had been dragged up.
A burning question suddenly popped into Emma's mind.
"What's the mayor's kid's name?"
"I think she calls him Henry." Mary Margaret smiled, obviously thinking of babies and puppies and all things nice.
"Huh," Emma let out a huff, before finally picking up her now less-than-hot chocolate.
'I would never have called him Henry', her mind grumbled.