Chapter two

"Is she weird?"

Regina closed her eyes in frustration as she set her lunch tray down on the table. She had told Kathryn and Ruby that she would discuss the new addition to the Mills family later because she really didn't know what she could say about her.

After Emma had come back from the doctor's, they had all experienced a rather tense dinner, since no one really knew what they could say to the girl. It wasn't as if the blonde was all too willing to say anything to start a conversation either, so most of the dinner had been spent in silence, other than Henry Jr lamenting about the newest edition of whatever comic book he had been reading. Regina could have sworn that she had seen a sparkle of interest in Emma's eyes when the topic of Marvel had been brought up, but it was almost as if she wouldn't dare to speak.

The brunette girl situated herself at the table as she regally took her seat next to Kathryn.

Scowling at the blonde who had asked the question, she replied exasperatedly, "what?"

"That new girl…I thought that she would be coming to school today so we could see for herself…"

Regina shrugged and tried not to allow herself to think about just how much she hadn't wanted to show the girl around before she had met her. If anyone asked her now, she would still claim that there was no way that she wanted to babysit the blonde, but the truth was different. The moment that Emma had crossed the threshold of the mansion, Regina couldn't help but think that she was so adorable in a very awkward, shy kind of way. If the bespectacled blonde acted with some more confidence, she had no doubt that she could be considered hot.

"My mom is letting her come to school after her arm is healed in a couple weeks…"

Kathryn nodded and replied, "you didn't answer my first question…is she weird?"

Regina rolled her eyes and sighed deeply as she finally looked away from her food and between her friends. Ruby didn't seem quite as interested in the situation as Kathryn was, but she still tilted her head as the conversation continued, even if she seemed to be focused on eating her food.

"I guess so…" Regina shrugged again, trying to ignore the guilt churning in her stomach as she insulted Emma. She knew that she could easily defend her, but she also knew that it wasn't what her friend wanted to hear, "she doesn't really talk."

"Would you want to talk if you suddenly had to deal with having Regina as your foster sister?" Ruby asked with a smirk as she looked between the blonde and brunette.

"You're hilarious as ever, Rubes," the head cheerleader scowled.

"I try," she chuckled, "but seriously, don't you think that we should be giving her a break? It's not easy to be the new kid, especially in Storybrooke."

"You're such a kill joy," Kathryn sighed dramatically.

"Maybe I'm just a nice person, unlike…" before Ruby could finish her sentence, a potato chip hit her in the face and she instantly picked up something random off her plate to return fire.

Regina grabbed her arm to stop the retaliation and she held up her hand to stop whatever Kathryn was planning to do, "you two are such children."

The brunette looked between her two friends and when she saw signs that their little war was over, she released Ruby's arm.

The three of them fell into silence before she the blonde asked, "is she creepy?"

Regina closed her eyes in frustration and she decided to just ignore the question. It wasn't as if anything she could say would stop the ridicule that she would be facing when she eventually had her first day at Storybrooke High.


Emma allowed the music from the radio to flow through the air as she eyes moved quickly over the words on the page.

Her eidetic memory meant that she was literally incapable of failing a subject as long as she at least looked at the material once. She knew that she had every reason to not even try when it came to school since she could just stare at the page and easily get an A. However, she found that school was the one thing that gave her some kind of consistency. Even if she hadn't actually stayed in the same school for more than eight months, it gave her an escape from the life she had led. No matter how shitty things got, she knew that she had something that every other child got.

Even if her foster parents almost never brought her all the books that she would need, as the Mills had before she had even arrived, she had always made sure that she would find a way to try and study something, even if it wasn't strictly on the curriculum. She tended to spend most of her time in the local library, so she had to admit that it was rather nice to actually be able to sit on a ridiculously comfortable bed while she worked.

A knock at the door brought her away from the words of the AP chemistry textbook and she looked up to see Cora standing at the door holding a plate in one hand a sealed parcel under the other arm.

"May I come in?" she asked with a small smile on her face as she wondered whether she would ever find any of her children happily studying when they had been given permission to not go to school.

Emma nodded quickly as her eyes moved between the objects in the woman's hands. She had already been given about ten books that morning after Cora had a meeting with the principle to confirm the classes that she would be attending in a couple of weeks. Most people would have been overwhelmed by the very long list of catch up that she would have to do in order to be allowed to stay in the advanced classes, but Emma was actually excited. In fact, she had already hand written two of the assignments from the list.

Cora crossed the threshold and allowed her eyes to flit around the room quickly. She resolved to have the room decorated as soon as possible, but she knew that what she was about to give the girl would probably freak her out slightly, so she decided that she would be better off holding off on that until the blonde was slightly more comfortable living in the mansion. She also knew that the girl would probably need some new clothing, which she decided would be something that either Regina or Zelena could deal with if she gave them her credit card.

"I brought you some lunch," she said with a smile as she presented the plate with the sandwich placed up it.

Emma furrowed her brow for a moment as she looked over to the clock on the nightstand to discover that it was in fact twelve o'clock. She hadn't even noticed that so many hours had passed since she had picked up the first book and she also didn't notice that her stomach was grumbling slightly, crying out in hunger.

"Thanks," she said as she stood from the bed to accept the plate. She was about to sit back down, but she frowned as she looked at the sheets that were probably more expensive than anything she had brought with her to the mansion.

"It's your bed, dear, you can eat on it if you want," the older woman chuckled lightly.

The blonde relaxed slightly and sat back down among all of the paper and books and placed the plate down next to her, "thanks…"

"You don't have to thank me for everything," Cora said as softly as possible, it was as if Zelena, Regina or Henry thanked her for every little thing that she did.

"Sor…"

"And you certainly don't have to apologise for anything," she quickly added with a raised hand.

Emma opened her mouth to apologise, but she hastily thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut before nodding vigorously.

"Principle Gold called a few minutes ago, he informed me that he can wait until next week to meet you since you have already met your buddy…"

The blonde furrowed her brow, but her stomach twisted in worry as it occurred to her what she meant, "Regina?"

"Is that a problem, dear?" Cora asked, her face pinching as she wondered whether she should change the arrangement. "I know that Regina can be quite intimidating…"

Emma quickly shook her head and said, "no…honestly it's fine…" hoping that the woman wouldn't be able to tell that the thought of spending more time with Regina was bothering her because of how gorgeous she found her to be.

Cora tilted her head, clearly trying to figure it out, but she didn't know her well enough to discern exactly what her expression meant. She decided to just push it aside and resolved to talk with Regina later about making sure that she would be a good buddy.

A silence passed between them and Cora briefly just why she had come into the room before it occurred to her that she still had the slightly heavy box under her arm.

Stepping forward, she motioned for the blonde to take it from her, which the girl promptly did with a curious frown.

"What's this?" Emma asked in confusion, obviously she didn't think that it was actually for her.

"There is one way to find out," Cora chuckled.

The blonde nodded slowly as she reached over to grab the key on the bedside table that she had been given earlier. It didn't take her long to slice through the packing tape and put the key back onto the table.

Cora looked on in excitement as the girl gingerly ripped open the parcel and slowly pulled out the box inside of it.

Emma's mouth fell open as she realised just what it was as she pulled it out by the plastic handle. The box was almost completely white, save for the picture of an apple on the sides and the image of a closed laptop below the words 'MacBook Pro'.

The girl continued to stare at it blankly for about thirty seconds and the mayor shifted awkwardly, before she explained, "I wanted this to come with the rest of your school supplies, but there was apparently some delivery issue. With the volume of work, you have, I believe that a laptop is the only logical solution. You can't reasonably be expected to handwrite all of your assignments and the computers in the library are unfortunately outdated…"

Emma continued to simply stare at the image as she took in what she had just been given with no strings attached. Her first instinct was to be suspicious. If Cora truly had only fostered her in order to gain favour in later elections, then it would make perfect sense that she would try and buy her a lot of things almost as an incentive to make her look good in the media. But at the same time, she could tell that the woman was obviously well off. Perhaps she just didn't understand that Emma would never have even dreamed of having a device like this since she often lived with families who used fostering as a source of income.

"I…" she started, but she found that there were just no words.

Cora watched the many emotions cross over her face and felt her stomach twist in guilt. She knew that it wasn't her fault that the blonde was so naturally suspicious of everything she was given, but she still couldn't stop herself for feeling bad. Her eyes briefly moved over to the image of the deceased Swans sat on the bedside table and she swallowed hard.

"Eat your lunch first dear and then you can set it up and start on more of your assignments. It would be in your best interest to try and do as much catch up as you can before your first day at school."

Emma just nodded her agreement as she continued to stare at the box that she couldn't quite believe was hers.

"Tha…" she began to say, but she quickly thought better of it, which caused the older woman to smile broadly.

"You can say thank you for some things," she chuckled.

The blonde actually let out a small laugh at that, she knew that she did thank people more than others did, but the fact was that there wasn't much she expected people to just give her, so she always felt the need to say 'thank you' at every opportunity.

"Thank you," she replied as she practically hugged the box with her good arm.

"You're very welcome, dear, oh and I'm going to ask Regina to take you clothes shopping, is that okay?"

Emma frowned slightly and wondered when the last time that she had been shopping was. She was usually just given hand-me-downs.

"Er…yeah…that would be okay…" she said after a moment of thought, even if her throat did constrict at the thought of spending time with Regina. Plus, she couldn't help but think that the brunette wouldn't be too happy about having to spend the day with the new dork. Even if she had yet to attend Storybrooke High, she had no doubt that the girl was popular, after all, why the hell wouldn't she be?

"Are you sure?" Cora asked cautiously.

Emma just nodded as she lightly placed the box down next to her, being as careful as humanly possible.

"Okay," the mayor replied as she looked around the room for a second and tried to figure out if there was anything she had forgotten. After the silence stretched on, Cora decided that it was about time that she left the girl to her studies and said, "well it appears that you probably have even more work to do than I do. I'll leave you to it, but if you need anything I'll be just down the stairs in my study."

The blonde nodded and smiled at the older woman before she turned on her heels and made her way to the door.

Once Emma was alone, she looked between the sandwich and the MacBook. Though she knew that she wouldn't be able to let go of her suspicion right now, she couldn't help but allow herself to smile to herself for at least a few seconds.


Henry Jr bit the inside of his cheek as he stood outside of the room that he had once seen as just the guest room. He had wanted to talk to Emma the day before, but he could also tell that she was probably just as shy as he was, so trying to talk to her with other people around would probably be very unhelpful to actually building some kind of friendship.

The thirteen-year-old shifted from foot-to-foot as he thought about what he wanted to ask her. He couldn't help but think that it was too much to ask of someone who was actually a complete stranger, but at the same time, he was having a difficult time imagining that she would say no.

Steeling his nerves, he decided that the worst she could say was 'no' and so he raised his arm up to rap on the door. He waited for about ten seconds, before he heard a muffled 'come in' from inside the room and he timidly opened the door.

He stood in the crack of the door as he looked around the room and smiled at the girl sat cross-legged on the bed before he allowed his eyes to drift to what she was surrounded by. She had the MacBook open in front of her as well as about three books at her side as well as one in her lap. He felt his mouth go dry slightly as he wondered whether he would ever be able to take in that amount of information at a time.

"Hey," he said timidly.

Emma blinked a few times before she smiled at him reassuringly, "I thought it would be your mom…"

"Does she come in here a lot?" Henry asked, with a small smirk as he thought about his mother freaking out slightly about the girl's comfort, even if it was rather obvious that she was more than comfortable in her little fortress of academia.

The blonde shrugged and used her good hand to close the book in her lap and shifted it so it was next to her, she then closed the laptop and replied, "only a couple times…she brought me lunch and then came back to get the plate…"

Henry nodded and wondered briefly how many times the mayor had actually wanted to come and check on her, but had forced herself not to and he said, "that's actually pretty good for her…my dad said that she tried to check on Zelena during her first day at school about six times…"

Emma actually smiled at that, but there was a certain sadness behind it that Henry couldn't quite understand.

He shifted uncomfortably for a second, before he asked, "I was wondering whether I could ask you something…you don't have to say yes, but it would be completely awesome if you say yes…"

The girl looked at the rambling boy in shock for a few moments before she nodded and motioned for him to come further into the room.

The brunette hesitated for a second, but he quickly crossed the threshold and walked over to the stand further into the room and he crossed his arms over his chest nervously.

"What's up?" she asked, pushing her glasses further up her nose as she inspected his worried expression and she wondered what could possibly make him feel like that.

"Mom asked me to help unpack all of your school books before you came yesterday…I swear that I couldn't even understand a sentence in any of them…" he said and as he continued to shift nervously.

"You are thirteen…" Emma frowned, hoping that she wouldn't insult him.

Henry nodded and sighed, "it's not that…it's just…" he cut himself off and looked up at the green eyes that actually held concern and he suddenly felt suddenly better. He didn't feel like she would judge him for what he was about to say, "I've been doing really bad at school, so they tested me and found out that I have dyslexia…I know it's not an excuse or anything and my mom has tried to find people to help me cope with it but nothing seems to work. I thought maybe…if you want to I mean…you could tutor me since you're like a genius and you obviously really like school…"

The blonde furrowed her brow and looked over to the amount of books that surrounded her, before she looked back to him, "why would I be better than professionals?"

"I…don't know how to explain it really…it's like since my mom didn't hire you to help me and she wouldn't know that I'm being tutored, there won't be as much pressure to do better…"

"Your parents wouldn't know?" Emma asked.

Henry nodded vigorously, trying to show just how important that part was, "I know that they would never admit it out loud, but I think they're worried about me. I won't get into college if my grades don't improve and I'm sick of being in the class with the people who don't even care. I really do try, but nothing seems to work. I understand if you don't want to help me…"

Emma nodded slowly as she considered his explanation. Since she had never had an issue at school, pressure was never really something that she'd had to face. Her perfect GPA was pretty much the only easy thing in her life.

"I can try and help…but I've never tutored anyone before…"

Henry ignored the implication that she didn't think that she would be good at it, since he had no doubt that she would be able to help him for some reason.

"Awesome!" he exclaimed excitedly, "I'm sorry that I can't pay you anything for tutoring me, but I was thinking…at dinner last night you seemed really interested in comics…are you a Marvel fan?"

The blonde frowned for a second as she tried to figure out how he had come to that realisation, she wasn't really used to people wanting to find out more about her, so she didn't think that anyone had been looking at her while she tried to eat.

"I…I've read a few comics when the library had them, but I've never gotten to read a full story arc…"

"I have like every issue since 2009…you can borrow whichever ones you want whenever you want to…who's your favourite?"

"Spiderman…" she said after a moment of consideration.

Henry smiled at this and replied, "good choice…I can borrow you like ten issues at a time and if you want more, you can tell me and I'll give you the next ten…"

Emma raised her eyebrows at him and couldn't help but smile at how excited he seemed to be.

"That would be okay," she chuckled lightly, "what exactly do you need tutoring in?"

"Everything," the boy blushed and looked down at his feet, "I'm fine at math but I'm not doing that great…but I'm completely failing English…"

The blonde nodded without a hint a judgement and she said, "do you have a syllabus?"

Henry frowned as he thought back to all of the pieces of paper he was given at the start of the year, he had no idea where he could have possibly put them.

"You can e-mail your teachers and ask for one," she chuckled after looking at the concentration on his face.

"I'll go and do that right now," he said rather excitedly, "thanks Emma, you're the best."

Emma watched him go and it wasn't until her door shut that she realised she had a massive smile plastered on her face.

A/N Hope you guys enjoyed :)

I would love to hear what you thought XD