"Damn it!" Emma cursed as toothpaste dripped down her clean button-up. She tried scrubbing at it, but her efforts were in vain, and she realised that she was either going to have to change clothes, or turn up to her first day at a new job looking like a slob. She rifled through the pile of fresh laundry haphazardly strewn across the end of her bed, until she found a polo. As a gym teacher, she could usually get away with dressing down a bit. However, students weren't due back until next week, so she didn't really have an excuse for dressing in gym gear.

She grabbed her bag and walked out to her car and swore again as she caught sight of the flat tire. She groaned as she remembered that she hadn't gotten around to replacing her spare after lending it to a friend back in Boston. It seemed that the universe was conspiring against her. She contemplated calling Triple A but quickly discarded that idea; there was no way they'd arrive and have her on the road soon enough to get her to work on time. She went back inside and changed clothes for a third time, pulling on running shoes, a wife-beater and running tights, and throwing a towel and a change of clothes into her backpack. The four miles or so to the school was pretty flat, and although she wasn't quite in the peak condition she'd achieved in college, the run shouldn't take more than half an hour. She figured she'd just have time to get there and grab a quick shower before her appointment with the headmistress. She put her earphones in and set off.

It felt good to stretch her legs; she'd been a bit slack about getting out there in the month since she'd secured the transfer to Storybrooke Academy. The hassle of preparing to uproot her life and move states had played havoc with her routine, but she resolved to go back to her daily run before she completely lost the habit. Her old coach back in college always said it was easier to stay fit than to get fit, and she found herself agreeing with him as she pushed through the initial tightness in her chest and her legs. She quickly settled into a familiar rhythm – inhale-stride-stride, exhale-stride-stride – and allowed herself to get lost in the music.

As she ran down the main street, she heard a couple of shouted greetings, and waved back. She'd only been in town for three days, but already a couple of the locals had started trying to draw her into town life. Mary Margaret, the local kindergarten teacher, had spotted her at Granny's Diner on her first day in town and immediately issued her with an invitation to have dinner with her and her husband David. Back in Boston, anyone behaving like that was either crazy or after something. Emma had tried to decline gracefully, unused to the easy friendliness Mary Margaret radiated. She'd been surprised at Mary Margaret's response to her attempts to sidestep the invitation: mortification. "Of course, how inconsiderate of me. You've only just arrived and you must be tired and busy trying to set up. Maybe another time when you're properly settled in."

Despite her successful avoidance of the dinner invitation, the next day she had opened her door to find Mary Margaret standing there with a casserole dish and an offer to help her unpack. She'd sighed inwardly, opening the door wider and gesturing for Mary Margaret to follow her in. She had cracked open a bottle of wine and figured that she might as well make the best of it. And as it turned out, she'd discovered that she actually kind of enjoyed Mary Margaret's company.

She contemplated the circumstances that had brought her to this strange, sleepy little coastal town, circumstances that had forced her to question her vocation as a teacher. On some level, she'd known that teaching could be hard, dangerous even, but she hadn't really thought about that in relation to herself. So when a student pulled a knife in her class and threatened another student, she hadn't quite been prepared for the way it would affect her. When her roommate's mother had mentioned she'd heard about a suitable vacancy from a colleague, Emma had jumped at the chance to escape Boston. She had taken the job, hoping that a fresh start and a slower pace might give her some perspective on events and help her come to a decision about where she should go from here.

She continued on her way, lost in thought. When she ran, sometimes she became so focused that anything outside her body, outside the rhythmic pumping of arms and legs, outside the steady regular sounds of her breaths, faded away. It was like that today – the world effectively ceased to exist for her – until she was abruptly brought back to the present moment by the thud of a body colliding with her own, her breath whooshing out of her. She pulled her earphones out and looked down in bemusement at the obstacle that had inserted itself into her path, as she tried to get her breathing under control.

The 'obstacle' stared back at her, eyes swiftly filling with fury.

Emma stood there for a moment, gaping at the woman unexpectedly sprawled on the ground in front of her, belatedly remembering how to speak. In her rush to apologise, she spoke in one near unintelligible string, "OhshitsorryIdidn'tseeyouareyouokayisthereanythingIcandotohelp?" She thrust a hand out, offering to help her up. The woman glared at her, ignoring the proffered hand and pushing herself up off the ground. The fury in the woman's eyes briefly turned to pain, before the angry mask slid back down.

Emma continued to babble on, offering apologies, Advil, and band-aids that she didn't have. Finally, the woman spoke, her lips curling with a hint of a snarl. Her voice was measured, polite, but leaving Emma with no doubts about the contempt she was on the receiving end of. "Thank you, but I think you've done quite enough." Then, the woman turned and stormed off to a Mercedes parked down the street.

Emma stood there, staring after her. It wasn't even nine in the morning, and already she was left wondering what further disaster would rain down upon her in what had already been a complete shit-storm of a day. She wondered who the woman was; she had been dressed elegantly, in a grey suit and heels that were high, but not too high. Her hair was short, cut in a fashion that could only be described as 'politician hair'; with her luck, it was the Mayor's wife or something. Emma crossed her fingers and fervently hoped that the woman was a tourist, just in town for the day. Storybrooke was a small town, after all, and she really didn't want to start off on the wrong foot.

She set off again, picking up her pace to make up the time that she'd lost after tangling with the mystery woman. She breathed a sigh of relief as she sighted the gates of Storybrooke Academy; 8:50am, and she was due to meet Headmistress Lucas at 9:00am. She made her way through the parking lot, stopping the first person she came across to get directions to the staff locker room. Thankfully, she'd mastered the art of the two-minute shower during her time in various foster homes, so she was scrubbed and ready to go outside the Headmistress' office at 8:59.

Emma took a deep breath and walked into the outer office. A woman, perhaps a couple of years younger than herself looked up from her mobile phone and offered her a wide smile.

"Hey. You must be Emma Swan. I'm Ruby, the Headmistress' assistant."

Emma was a little surprised at this. Emma's impression of Headmistress Lucas when she'd interviewed for the role over the phone had been of an older, conservative woman. Ruby didn't quite fit into the picture she'd built; she'd expected a similarly conservative assistant. Instead, Ruby sported an easy, open smile, a red streak in her hair and an outfit that was definitely pushing the boundaries of what constituted respectable office attire. Emma half-expected her to snap some chewing gum and twirl her hair.

Emma mentally shook herself, realising that her staring was verging on rudeness. "Yeah, that's me. I um… I've got an appointment to see the Headmistress."

"Just head on through; she's expecting you. Afterwards, I'll take you for a tour around the school and get you up to speed with who's who in the zoo. This afternoon, we've got our first staff meeting for the school year, so you'll get a chance to meet everyone later today."

"Thanks. I'll see you later."

Emma took a deep breath, wiping suddenly sweaty palms against her pants. There was something about taking that first step through an unfamiliar doorway that always made her heart beat a little faster. Throughout her childhood, there had been a succession of doors, each representing the beginning of a new potential threat, each leading to strange lands with a range of traps and pitfalls to navigate. She'd been fortunate; sometimes she'd been met with kindness, more often with benign neglect, very occasionally with the genuine possibility of danger.

She'd learned very early that not everyone in the system was as lucky as she had been, that monsters were real and very often hid in in plain sight. This knowledge had made her cautious, made her accustomed to questioning everyone's motives. She'd become adept at judging people, at recognising both sincerity and the intent to harm, developing a near-infallible sense of when a lie was spoken. This wariness had saved her on more than one occasion, allowing her to sense danger before it fully developed and to extricate herself from sticky situations.

Today, there should be no such danger, other than the ever-present possibility of making a fool of herself. She looked back at Ruby, who smiled encouragingly at her, before steeling herself and turning the door knob to the inner office.

She stepped through the door, taking a moment to survey her surroundings. The furniture was antique, tasteful in dark tones. The walls were lined with bookshelves housing a range of volumes, including what Emma, with her untrained eye, suspected were a significant number of first editions.

The Headmistress stepped out from behind a large, ornate desk, extending her hand, smiling warmly. The Headmistress was short, with a kindly, grandmotherly appearance. Her face was marked with the type of lines that indicated a tendency to smile rather than frown. Emma relaxed her guard. Her first impressions tended to be right, and her impression of Headmistress Lucas was one of kindness and generosity. That was reinforced as the Headmistress spoke.

"Miss Swan, how wonderful to finally meet you."

Emma took the offered hand, noting the surprisingly firm grip.

The Headmistress gestured towards a pair of Chesterfields in the corner of the office. "Please, take a seat. Ruby should be in with some tea shortly, and we can have a chat."

Emma sat in the chair she'd been directed to, her fingers idly skimming across the buttery leather. "Thank you Headmistress. I'm looking forward to the opportunity to teach at Storybrooke Academy. Everything I've heard about the school is incredibly positive, and I can't wait for classes to start." As she spoke, she realised that she was trying to convince herself of her eagerness, more than the Headmistress.

"I'm glad that you've heard good things about us, Miss Swan – we've worked very hard to build a reputation for excellence in all fields. I'm very much hoping that you can improve our reputation in one respect. As you may know, our track team's performance over the past few years has been, shall we say, dreadful, and that's being charitable.

"Your work at your previous school in Boston to build up the track program, and your success as a college athlete certainly caught my eye, and that of the Board, and that's what gave you the edge over the other candidates we interviewed for the role. We're very much hoping that you will be able to replicate that success at Storybrooke Academy. We will be providing you with significant resources to turn the program around, and we will be open to considering any further requests you make."

Emma felt some of her doubts evaporate at this. The prospect of being able to shape the athletics program at Storybrooke, with access to better resources actually gave her a bit of a buzz. Back in Boston, teaching in a poorer neighbourhood, she'd had access to minimal funds and limited facilities. Some of the kids didn't have access to appropriate equipment, such as running shoes, and she'd had to be very creative about finding ways to get her hands on what her students needed. She'd found the work she'd done on the athletics program incredibly rewarding, but the opportunity to implement her vision without having to overcome countless obstacles filled her with a new kind of excitement.

There was a knock at the door, and Ruby entered carrying a tray with an old-fashioned silver teapot, cups and a jug of milk. She poured the tea, setting a cup before Emma with a saucy wink, before quickly departing.

Headmistress Lucas sipped contemplatively at her tea for a moment before grimacing. "My great-niece has many talents. Unfortunately, making good tea is not one of them. She learned to make quite good coffee working in my sister Eugenia's diner, but despite all of my best efforts, she simply can't get tea right."

Emma's eyebrows shot up. "Ruby's your great-niece?" The thought of the slightly vampish assistant being related to the prim, proper woman in front of her seemed incredibly unlikely.

The Headmistress smiled at her surprise. "She is. My sister Eugenia and I raised Ruby after her parents died.

"You'll find that a lot in Storybrooke. It's the kind of town that people don't really leave, and we so rarely see strange faces in town. Everyone is connected to pretty much everyone else in one way or another."

Not for the first time since arriving in town, Emma wondered what she'd gotten herself into.

After her meeting with the Headmistress, Ruby took her on the promised tour of the campus. A lot of the teaching staff were not on campus yet, not needing to arrive until later in the day for the first staff meeting for the new school term. Ruby chattered away to her, dropping tidbits about each of her new colleagues as they made their way through the school.

Emma was only half paying attention to Ruby's never-ending stream of gossip, too busy taking in the school facilities. It was incredible how different Storybrooke's campus was to her old school. Instead of the dark, claustrophobic buildings and bleak concrete of Boston, there were bright, airy buildings and open, grassy, tree-lined expanses. The campus was beautiful, and Emma took a moment to imagine it filled with students, of how wonderfully alive it might look.

She realised she'd zoned out and hadn't said anything for a while. "So the Headmistress is your great-aunt?"

"She is, although you couldn't tell by looking at us. She and my grandmother raised me though, so she's more like a mother to me."

Emma smiled wistfully at that. She was a little envious of the family that had stepped up to raise Ruby. She would have given anything for that. "She seems really nice."

"She is. Don't let that sweet exterior fool you though. Underneath that, there's a backbone of tempered steel. Rumour has it that when she was a young teacher, great-aunt Ethel held off a marauding band of Somalian sea-pirates with a fishing rod and a pocket knife, saving her twenty students from certain death."

Emma snorted at this. "Is that true?"

Ruby grinned. "I don't know, but it seems plausible. She's always slept with a shotgun beside her pillow, and I know that she knows how to use it. She and Granny have been duking it out for first place in the shooting contest at the annual Storybrooke fair for as long as I can remember. No one else even bothers to enter anymore."

Ruby continued. "Rumour also has it that she's one hundred and seventy-three years old. I'm not sure about that one, but she's definitely been a key figure in Storybrooke for as long as anyone can remember. She pretty much single-handedly built the Academy up from a small town school to one of the more prestigious institutions in the state."

They'd visited most of the buildings, meeting a few of the faculty along the way. They were currently walking through the sporting fields, and Emma was almost salivating at the prospect of the facilities she would have access to. Ruby looked at her watch. "We'd better start heading back now. Don't want you to be late for your first meeting."

"So apart from your great-aunt and her shotgun is there anyone else I should watch out for?" Emma was keen to get the lie of the land before the staff meeting.

"Mostly, everyone's pretty cool. But you'll want to watch out for the English department. The Head of English, Regina Mills, is a bit of a hard case, and her deputy, Sidney Glass is a real sneaky bastard. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him. But Regina's the one you really have to watch out for. A couple of years ago, some of the senior students started referring to her the Evil Queen. It stuck, and some of the faculty started to use the name as well."

They made their way back to the admin building, and Ruby led her to the staff boardroom taking a seat at the far end, facing the door. Ruby whispered to her as each of the staff members filed in.

"That's Belle. She works in the library. We usually go out for drinks on the weekend – you should totally join us sometime.

"That guy there is Archie Hopper. He's the guidance counsellor. Really sweet guy, and great to talk to.

"Those guys over there are in the science department. Kathryn, the blonde, teaches chemistry, and Fred teaches physics.

"Marco's the workshop teacher. He makes the coolest wooden furniture – if you need to get your house kitted up, go see him and he'll sort you out."

Ruby continued to fill her in.

Emma was trying her best to keep all of the names straight. "Okay, so that's Sidney? Which one is Regina?"

Ruby looked around the room. "She's not here yet, which is pretty unusual. She's usually here early, looking cranky if anyone is even so much as a minute late."

As the steady stream of staff members turned to a trickle, the Headmistress began to speak, welcoming everyone back for the new school year. Emma shifted her focus from the door to pay attention to the speech, barely registering a latecomer slipping in to the room.

Ruby nudged her and hissed. "That's Regina."

Emma looked up at the newcomer, and felt all the colour draining from her face as she realised that the anonymous victim of her 'hit and run' that morning was, in fact, one Regina Mills. One Regina Mills who seemed to be eyeing her in a way that gave her the distinct feeling that hikers would find her body in several months time in Storybrooke Forest, chopped up into little pieces.

"Shit." Emma swore under her breath.

Headmistress Lucas continued to speak. "And now, it gives me great pleasure to welcome our new gym teacher, and head of the track program, Miss Emma Swan."

Emma barely registered the smiles and the welcomes being voiced by her new colleagues. She only had eyes for one of them.

"Track? I was under the impression that Miss Swan had been brought in as a new defensive coach for the football team. She certainly seems to have a talent for running people over." Regina's voice could only be described as acerbic.

Emma blushed hotly, and felt herself getting riled up. Before she could stop herself, she bit back, "And you apparently don't think the laws of physics apply. I was running way too fast to stop."

Regina folded her arms and glared, and Emma belatedly noticed the bandage on her wrist. A bandage that hadn't been there this morning. "Maybe you should save the Olympics impression for the track, rather than the sidewalk of the main street."

"Oh crap." Emma groaned to herself, and sunk down into her seat, wishing that she could disappear. Way to start things out on the right foot. She remembered hearing that bad things came in threes. It seemed that the old saying was true.

The rest of the staff watched their exchange with some bemusement. Ruby's whisper was sympathetic. "Guess the advice to watch out for Regina came a little too late."