Author's Note: Hi! So new story here that I'm actually crazy excited to write. I'm going to try to update once a week, but might be a little less, a little more. I'm kind of rolling right now so that's all good. I'm not sure how long this story will end up being because I started out with one thing in mind and have already made it more than that so we'll see.

The story is loosely based on the storyline of Miss Congeniality starring Sandra Bullock. Neither that movie nor the characters and world of Once Upon a Time are mine (frownie face).

Thank you to j-j-sawyer-phillips tumblr for helping me out with the story title!

Now please enjoy!

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Emma had known from a very early age that she was different. And not a good different.

One could say it was because she'd never really had a family. She doesn't know the story of her birth. She doesn't know if the people who'd given her up were rich, poor, cruel, or just too young to have a baby to care for. Her early memories are of being cared for by an elderly woman under the wooden trellises of an abandoned bridge. Mother Bentley made it a point to tell Emma that she'd been found in a hollow tree at the edge of the Blue Grass Clearing. Emma liked to think that perhaps there was a significance to this, that this information would be helpful to finding her family. But this was a wavering hope.

When Mother Bentley had died, Emma had made her way to the village closest to the bridge. It was a place they would visit for supplies and whatever work Mother Bentley could scrounge up. There Emma had learned quickly that a small girl who had no real name and no home had no protection. She'd been turned away from homes of families who couldn't take on the extra mouth to feed and threatened by shopkeepers to not dig through their trash.

Her only hope had been entering into an uneasy alliance with the rat-catcher, a man whose unenvied job was both a necessity and a point of ridicule. Carsten at least had ended up an honorable man. While not very affectionate or paternal, with his rough face and gruff demeanor, he allowed Emma a dry place to sleep and food – if she'd earned it.

The difference between her and other children became highlighted to her one specific day. She wasn't one for making friends, the life she lived and the only person she could claim any sort of familial relationship not exactly something other children were eager to know more about. She'd been tolerated at the annual fairs when she'd wandered into the play groups and the festivities, while not participating whole-heartedly in the proceedings, at least hanging around them.

The only constant in her life had been that of the written word, in a book that Carsten had handed her one day, a ragged book full of stories of heroes who defended their lands from the evils of the world; of damsels in need of rescuing and marrying; of broken families who were healed by the power of true love. She'd scoffed at Carsten when he'd first given it to her. But once she'd started reading it, she'd been unable to put it down and kept it hidden under her pallet. Carsten was wise enough not to comment. She only found the time to read the book through on those festival days where the streets would be full of stalls and cheer and children playing. She'd sit on an empty stoop and dive into a world where justice prevailed and the world ended in happily ever afters.

However, on this particular day, she's distracted from her reading by the jeers of a group of boys only several feet away from where she sat. She initially thinks that her attention is grabbed because of the edge of viciousness to the boys' voices but after, she realizes it's because she needed to be taken out of a fantasy world and placed in the very real one she inhabited.

Turning, she sees the bigger boys of the village crowded around another boy, small shoulders hunched up around his ears, head bowed as if this would shield him from the cruel and taunting words they were throwing at him.

"Pest!"

"Orphan!"

"No one wanted you!"

They're words she's familiar with herself and she can feel her ears turning red as the blood rushes to her head. While she hasn't really lived the easy life and has endured her share of heckling, the stories of right and wrong, good prevailing over evil, seem to have imbued her with a set sense of right and wrong.

Before she's aware of it, she's pushed her skinny body between the boys and taken a defiant stance in front of the smaller boy. Her fists are clenched at her sides, her face upturned into the boy that's closest. "You leave him alone!"

He's momentarily shocked that someone, let alone a girl, has decided to stand up to him. Then his face relaxes into a sneer and he steps closer to her, knowingly using his height to intimidate her.

"What if I don't want to? What's a girl like you going to do about it?" He chuckles to his friends who join in, sheep-like.

The sharp elbow to the stomach catches him in surprise and he gasps in pain, hunching over. She takes the opportunity to push him over by his shoulders and he lands on his backside hard, the hands of his surrounding friends uselessly stretched to catch him.

There's silence for just a moment as the bigger boy stares up at her, stunned. He gets himself together soon enough and starts toward her, causing her to take a step back in spite of herself, before he stops and a smirk appears on his face.

"You know what," he says as he leans around her to speak to the younger boy she's been defending, "I'll leave you to your little wife-y, who doesn't even seem to be a girl." He spits out. "Come on, boys. There's better things to do in this village." He dismisses the younger children with a shrug of his shoulder, turning away. The others follow suit.

Despite the parting remarks, Emma feels like she'd gained a victory. And perhaps a new friend. She turns to smile at the younger child. The smile fades as she's confronted with the boy's frown, his brown eyes holding a significant look of disfavor.

"You're welcome?" She doesn't mean for it to come out as a question, but she can't really think of a reason for him to be looking at her that way.

He ignores the hand she's holding out to shake and starts stalking off in the opposite direction. "I didn't ask for your help. Go find some other 'damsel in distress,'" he yells at her over his shoulder.

Emma's hand stays up for a moment longer before slowly letting it fall to her side.

All she'd wanted to do was help.

She's confused because the way it usually ends is that the rescuee and the rescuer ride off into the sunset or become friends or something. At least that that's how it was in the stories of her book. She looks back at the abandoned item on the stoop, a dark square in the dirt. The starkness hits something inside of her. She realizes that life isn't like the tales she's filled her head with, that it's a lot rougher and gray than the black and white of good versus evil.

Maybe what her life is now is how it's always going to be: a struggle to survive, being looked down on, no one but the ones who already live on the edge of normal existence to be her friend or someone to turn to. She goes over to where the book lays and picks it up, feeling the battered leather under her small fingers. Her fingers clench tightly around the book before she deliberately turns and walks to the nearest pile of waste and drops it.

Maybe she's not meant to live the fairy tale and have a happy ending, but she sure doesn't have to stay in the life she lives now.