Hi guys!

This story is very au, it doesn't follow the storyline of the show what-so-ever but I try to use the same characters with similar traits and personalities. It is my first SwanQueen fic - kind of my first fic in general, actually - and I only have a vague idea of where I am heading with it...

I live in Australia, so the school system/ages and the foster system/home thing is based on what I know happens here (not 100% on the foster system).

please let me know what you guys think!

The song used in this chapter is Coming Down by Ball Park Music.

Disclaimer: I don't own shit.

Chapter 1: Coming Down

The chefs are in the alleyway throwing down

They're high on PCP when I'm around

They don't recall a thing, or their favorite meal,

Till they are coming down.

Everything was muted. The scenery completely silent, but Emma was content.

She gazed around her, taking in the people whose mouths moved, almost comically, in silent conversation with one another. She was in the middle of a crowded room, but everyone moved around her as if she weren't visible at all.

That's when she noticed.

She sat in a claw-footed bathtub filled with warm rose-scented water and bubbles, but that was not what caught her attention. A beautiful, olive-skinned woman sat across from her, midnight hair just touching her shoulders, plump lips painted a deep red. Their legs were draped over one another, a warm glow emanating from where they touched.

She gazed into the chocolate dark eyes across from her and a smile graced her features, mimicked almost instantaneously by the brunette. The tops of toned calves and olive knees peaked just above the surface of the water where they rested on Emma's lap.

Their eyes remained locked as their hands moved in unison, almost as if possessed, toward the others.

As they reached one another, a pulse of warmth shot from their linked hands directly to Emma's chest and pooled.

Emma started to move towards the woman then, the ends of her blonde curls becoming damp as they trailed through the water. Every inch Emma travelled towards the woman, the larger the warmth in her chest began to grow and when Emma caught the brunette's neck with her other hand and guided their lips together fueling the warmth to completely fill Emma, her eyes closing, body vibrating with the feeling. When a stealthy tongue ran its way across Emma's bottom lip, she granted entry and the warm glow that filled her so completely, flowed from her mouth into the other. They moved together then, free hands pulling at the other's neck determined to extinguish any space between them. The woman caught Emma's bottom lip between her teeth, biting down lightly and Emma broke the kiss, surprise colouring her features. As her eyes found the brunettes, the latter released her lip and tilted her head back in laughter. The rich sound echoed throughout the room, the only sound to break the silence thus far. The sound encouraging the warmth inside of Emma to become scorching hot, though she felt no pain.

Their gazes locked again and a building pressure began to develop deep within the warm pool of Emma's chest. An unknown expression flitted across the brunette's features as the brown eyes took on a look of meaning. A look Emma had never, in her life, received before. The brunette continued to smile at Emma in this manner causing the pressure to build, almost to the point where it felt as if Emma would simply combust. And when she felt the same smile begin to crawl across her face, that's exactly what she did.

A shift of the sheet in front of her woke Emma. She kept her eyes shut as she felt the body crawl into the space between her stomach and the edge of the bed. She let her arm be pulled over the small figure, by a pair of tiny hands, and smiled to herself.

"Good morning Charlotte." She opened her eyes to a face-full of caramel coloured ringlets

"Shh. I'm asleep"

"No you're not."

"Yeah, I am."

"No," Emma grabbed the sides of the 6-year-old and began to tickle her hard, "you're not"

The latter burst into a fit of high-pitched giggles and began to writhe fiercely on the bed in front of her, kicking her legs back into Emma's.

"No! Ems, stop. No please! Ems!"

Emma retracted her hands and her smiled grew impossibly large when the younger girl turned her, bright, ocean-blue eyes on her in faux anger.

"I don't like you anymore."

Emma inwardly grinned. Schooling her features to remain blank, she forced her mouth to fall in sadness, looking down and throwing an arm dramatically over her face. She peeked underneath her arm and through her lashes, watching as the girl's false anger turned to guilt. Charlotte ducked her head and burrowed into Emma's chest, throwing her tiny arms around her in a hug.

"I was joking Emma! I'm sorry," she turned her head to look into eyes of deep forest-green, blue orbs filled with sincerity, "I love you."

"I know, Bug." She enveloped the small girl into a tight hug, kissing her on the forehead, "I love you too."

"HA. Gayyyyyy"

The voice from across the room pulled both the girls' attentions as a 7-year-old boy leaped from the top bunk and landed on the wooden floor with a thunk, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"You're just jealous because Ems loves me more than you, August."

"Nah-uh"

"Yeah-huh"

"Nah-uh"

"Yeah-huh"

Emma watched the two squabble in amusement. She turned to see Ruby in the bunk beside her own, the 13 year old still fast asleep and Henry above her tentatively peering over the edge at her.

"Morning Henry" she smiled up at the boy and he ducked away. He was the newest to the home, having only arrived last week. Both Emma and Mary have tried to talk to him, to let him know he can trust them, but so far it hasn't worked. He'd come from a pretty bad family, with dark, angry bruises colouring his twig-thin arms and legs. He was only nine, but you could see in his eyes that he had already suffered quite a lot in his short life.

Unfortunately, It was like this for most kids who lived their lives in the system. Emma knew from experience.

She turned her head to check the last bed in the room, finding the two girls talking excitedly on the top bunk and laughed, "Good morning girls."

"Morning Emma!" They chimed in perfect unison. Aurora and Mulan had been brought to Mary on the same day, and have been inseparable since. They both turned 15 soon, meaning they were able to leave the home and venture out into the real world. To be blunt, this scared the living shit out of both Mary and Emma, though they knew that if the girls had each other, they would be perfectly fine.

She turned her attention back to August and Charlotte, still caught up in the argument.

"Nah-uh"

"Yeah-huh"

Emma jumped in surprise as Charlotte's head whipped around to face her, and spoke quickly, determined to make a point, "Emma, who do you love the most - me or August?" She gestured to the boys who now stood with his hands on his hips, smirk in place.

Emma studied the little girls face. Charlotte had been in the home for 2 years now. Emma remembers the night she was brought in; she would probably never forget it either. The four year old had been carried into Mary's home asleep on the social workers shoulder, only waking when she had been placed on the ground to stand. Her hand never left her right cheek, her eyes trained on the ground. When the papers had been signed and the social worker had left, Mary and Emma had sat her down to talk, not unlike they did whenever they got a new kid. It took a large amount of convincing, and a lot of trust, but when she removed her hand, she revealed a large red burn that stretched from just under the waterline of her right eye to her bottom lip, covering most of the young girls cheek. Mary had been gob-smacked; not realizing the 'small injury' the social worker had explained meant a burn the size of a large potato, red and weeping. Apparently, the father of the last foster home Charlotte had been in decided it was perfectly OK to throw hot oil on the face of a four-year-old child.

A small, insistent tug on the end of a damp flaxen curl brought Emma back to the present. "Ems?"

Emma looked once again at the face of the little 6-year-old. The red of the burn has long since disappeared, leaving a large, white, disfiguration in its wake.

"I love you both," She stated as she sat up, swinging her legs over the end of the bed, "Equally."

"She's only saying that because she really loves ME more." Charlotte shot at August as she climbed onto Emma's back. Emma stood; keeping a hold on the six year old wrapped piggyback style on her back, and walked over to August pulling him into a tight, one-armed hug. She leaned in close, whispering into his ear on the sly, "let her have this one."

August's blues eyes flash with disappointment and he let's a fake defeated smile cross his face, turning up to Charlotte perched on Emma's back.

"You're right."

Emma feels Charlotte hum in approval as she starts her way out the door, towards the kitchen. The kids all move to follow her, a habit formed early in the home.

"Emma, why is your hair all wet?" Charlotte questions, fingering one of Emma's dampened curls.

"Uh, I'm not sure." Emma answers, honest curiosity accenting her voice, as she enters the kitchen.

"Morning Mary!" Emma and Charlotte chimed together, sending the young girl into a fit of giggles. Mary smiled brightly at them and responded in a song-song voice, "Good morning girls."

Mary is Emma's savior. Five years beforehand, when Emma was just thirteen, she had run away from a particularly horrible foster family. Not that she wasn't used to them, thirteen years in the system had seen that she experienced her fair share of terrible homes. She knew how to handle herself accordingly. In most she was there simply the food coupons, the money she brought in, not to be fed or paid attention to. In others, she was the kicking bag, the 'take it out on her' girl. She was independent and strong-willed, able to feed and look after herself by the age of nine. But this foster-father had entirely different plans for her and he executed them viciously, without a second thought. Emma had run then, unsure where exactly she was headed, and continued to run until she just simply couldn't any longer, and that's when Mary had found her.

Emma thanked god everyday that she happened across such a good soul as Mary.

She had helped her through everything that followed. The pregnancy. The miscarriage. The mess of a person that was fourteen-year-old Emma Swan.

From that moment, Mary had cared for Emma and as many foster kids as the system allowed her to house. They all understood Mary couldn't adopt them, 'a two-bedroom house isn't enough for six kids, not permanently' (as the foster system had so kindly put it) and she couldn't afford a larger house. Mary made sure all her kids knew that her house was as permanent as they wanted it to be and that she will protect them with her life, regardless.

Emma placed Charlotte on her chair around the table as the kids filed through the door behind them. Emma moved to help Mary organize the kid's breakfasts, knowing Mary could not get all the kids ready for school as well as herself ready for work. Mary shot her a grateful look and moved to their lunches.

Emma was fast approaching her 18th birthday and completing her last year of high school. Often Mary was questioned about the age of Emma and why she was still technically living in the care of the foster home, but she always found the most polite way to warn the social workers to fuck off. Mary and Emma loved the kids, they had developed special relationships with them all. None, however, quite as significant as the bond formed between Emma and Charlotte.

At first, Mary hadn't understood the instant connection that had developed between the two girls, but she caught on quite quickly. Both the girls had it the hardest out of all the kids. Up until Henry, they were both the only kids that had not had a single decent foster home before Mary. Charlotte had been in her first foster home, one she had been abused in for two years before the oil incident occurred, and Emma had ran from her twenty-fourth home, not that she'd been counting. The other kids had come from half-decent homes and had been sent into Mary's care because the families could, or would, no longer care for them.

"Morning."

Ruby stomped through the door and plopped down on the seat at the end of the table, hair sticking up at odd angles a yawn widening her lips.

"Well good morning. Aren't you just a little ray of sunshine this morning, huh?" Emma laughed towards the dyed redhead who glared at her from her seat, "Our own personal 'Little Miss Sunshine.'"

"Oh, Fu-"

"Hey!" Mary yelled, shooting a glare at Ruby, "language!"

Emma smirked towards the teenager who smiled sarcastically mouthing a very definitive, 'fuck you' completed with a flick of the finger.

"Mary, Ruby put her finger up at Ems." August stated smugly.

"Ruby!" Mary scolded.

"Aw, come on!" The teenager pointed towards Emma, a smile lighting her face, "she totally egged me on."

Emma put her hands up in mock defense, "I didn't do shit."

"Emma! Come on girls, really?" Mary scolded once more, gaze flicking between the two.

"Sorry" they laughed together.

Emma sat the plate-full of toast on the table and the kids all jumped for a piece, fighting over the slices.

"Guys, there's like, twenty pieces there. Calm down, no-ones going to starve." Emma stated with a smile, pulling up a chair on the right of Charlotte. She reached forward and snagged two pieces of toast for herself.

"I got the best pieces" Charlotte smirked, climbing onto Emma's lap.

"Nah-uh" argued August from across the table.

"Yeah-huh"

The kitchen was loud, filled with conversation as they ate. Emma finished her plate first, shoveling the last piece of her toast into her mouth.

Mary shot Emma a disappointed look from across the table, "Really, Emma? You are a lady."

Emma simply shrugged as she shifted Charlotte back onto her seat and walked to the sink, placing her dish inside. Turning back to the table, she noticed the only missing member.

She picked up the only untouched plate on the table and buttered another two pieces of toast. She glanced at Mary and she nodded. "Hurry up guys, I'll be taking the littlies to school soon so the rest of you will have to hurry if you want a lift with Em."

As she walked out the door she heard Charlotte pipe up, "Why don't you guys swap? Then Ems can take me to school."

"Ems goes to High school sweetie. It's not on the way to your school."

She smiled to herself as she carried the plate through the kitchen door and headed towards the bedroom. Her mind never straying from the pool of warmth that has encased her chest since she first awoke this morning.

This scenery of saints and stained glass walls

You get a little badge and you stand tall

You're knee-deep in the shit of suburban sprawl

And you are coming down

Well you are coming down

Oh you are coming down.