"Is this the part where you meet her again Grammy?" Reggie questioned, grinning from ear to ear.

"Do you wanna hear the story or not?"

"I do, I do!"

"Then stop interrupting! Now, as I was saying . . . ."

52 Years Ago

It was my first day at Mr. Gold's Asylum For Women, and I had already wanted to quit. The place was a dump and smelled of sour milk and gym socks, and the food was atrocious.

I could've sworn I had seen the meatloaf I ordered for lunch move. If I had had the liberty to quit, I would have in a heartbeat.

But money was tight, and I needed something to get me by. So, I decided to make the best of it. First thing I had to do was go see Mr. Gold and check in.

Sounded easy enough, right? Wrong. It took me twenty minutes to find his office because all of the guards were too busy hooking up with each other to answer my questions!

Well, at least I got a tour of the place. My first observation was right, it was definitely a dump. But mostly, while I was on my search for Mr. Gold's office, I was trying to see if I'd run into a short-haired brunette.

Of course, I was looking for my mystery girl from the night before. I hadn't stopped thinking about her since the second she ran off. The craziest part of it was, I didn't even know her name, but I cared so much about her.

I had to find her, even if it took searching through all of Boston. Hell, I would've searched all of Massachusetts for her! *chuckle* Anyway, when I finally found Mr. Gold's office, I was ten minutes late for my meeting.

"Morning, dearie. Finally decided to show up, I see." I swear, he sounded like a creepy leprechaun. His shaggy shoulder-length hair all in his face, nose poking out like Pinocchio. All in all, he was kind of weird looking. But what was really surprising was the fact that his office was spotless. Clean, big, and elegant. Talk about saving the load for yourself.

"Sorry, I got lost." I told him.

"It's quite fine. But are you somewhat acquainted with the asylum now?"

"Somewhat."

"Good. Here's your rounds chart. It has a list of the women that you'll be attending to." He'd handed me a brown clipboard with a sheet of paper, it had seven names and room numbers. I remember thinking how interesting it would be to find out all of these stories from these seven different women.

"Great, thanks."

"Well you better get started, they're all chatters. Except for the last one, she's a real special case. Might want to watch out for her, dearie. Might get you in your sleep." He had the nerve to smile. What on earth was funny about that?

"Um . . ."

"Just a joke, I promise. You might want to go to the center now, it's relax time for the girls. That way you can meet them all at once."

"Okay, thanks." I high-tailed my ass-I mean butt, out of there. Mr. Gold really gave me the creeps. Luckily, the center was easier to find than his office. A group of six girls sat spread out around the room on dingy brown couches and half broken chairs. According to my chart, one had been missing.

"Who're you?" She was ballsy, I could tell. Blonde, clearly the oldest and the leader of the group.

"I'm Emma Swan, the new nurse."

"So they finally got rid of Betsy." She smiled at me in a skeevish, perverted way. Why were the people there so creepy? Maybe because it was an asylum.

"Um, who's Betsy?" They all looked at each other then, and I could tell that they all knew something important that I didn't.

"They didn't tell you?"

"No, who was she?"

"She was the last nurse. She brought Regina's mother here to talk to her, thought it would do her some good. When Betsy went to sleep, Regina set her hair on fire. Poor dear got 3rd degree burns." At first I thought that they were just screwing with me, but then I noticed the serious look on all of their faces. It was no joke. These women were crazy. I tried to pick out which one was this 'Regina' woman.

"Don't worry dear, she's not in here. We're the good girls." I remember rolling my eyes at that.

"What're all of your names?" The oldest woman still spoke first. "I'm Lefty, this is Red, Snow, Abby, Bella and Ella." She'd pointed to them as she said their names. Three blondes and three brunettes.

"Those are your nicknames I presume."

"Well of course, can't go walking around with the names society gave us." What a drama queen, I had thought.

"Right, well where is Regina? Mr. Gold said to make sure I meet all of you."

"She'll be joining us shortly, she's always fashionably late. Why don't you take a seat?" It was pretty obvious at that point that she'd been hitting on me, and I couldn't say that I wasn't flattered. She was attractive, but crazy. I made sure to sit as far away from them all as possible, which meant sitting on a wooden chair that gave my ass- I mean butt, splinters.

"So, what's everyone's story?" No answers.

"Okaaaay, Red, why don't you tell me about yourself?" This one was tall, one of the brunettes. Wore lots of make-up, kind of looked like a pin-up girl. She smirked.

"Hun, I don't think now's a good time for us to be rehashing all of our sob stories."

"And why's that?" The small blonde, Ella, spoke up this time.

"Because you'd be out that door in less than five minutes." They were testing me, seeing how much I could take.

"You know Reggie, your dad doesn't like when I tell you this part of the story." Emma said.

"Oh come on Grammy, you can't stop now! And besides, I've heard it already, and if I'm gonna be a homicide detective one day I gotta be able to handle it!"

"Alright, but if he walks in, I'm snitching on you."

"Okay, okay, just continue the story!"

"Try me." They all looked to a small brunette with a pixie cut. Snow was her name. She seemed agitated.

"Why is my story always the deal breaker?"

"Because you're the youngest, Dear. Now go on, tell her." It was becoming clear to me then that these girls did everything that Lefty said. It made me curious about her. What had she done that was so terrible to make all of them listen to her?

"I murdered my ex-boyfriend." Didn't sound too crazy . . . .

"Then shouldn't you be in prison?"

"Before I . . . before I killed him, I had delusions that he murdered my mother. So I killed him . . . And his parents, and I took pictures. I posted them around my old town." Yep, crazy, definitely crazy. And you know what? She was smiling!

"Oh . . . Um, that's very . . . Uh, wow." Me. Speechless. Doesn't happen anymore, now does it?

"See, told you you couldn't take it." Ella, she thought I was weak, well she was dead wrong.

"No, I'm good. I just . . . It took me off guard, but now that I had the deal breaker I'm ready for them all."

"Who're you?" Everyone had looked up past me. The special guest had finally arrived. It was time to meet Regina. I prayed that she'd like me, and that she wouldn't set my hair on fire in my sleep. I faced her, expecting to see . . . . Well I don't exactly know what I was expecting to see. I do know, however, that I wasn't expecting to see her.

"You!"