Chapter 1: A Dose of Magicless Reality

Rose shot up, gasping for air. "Dream," she murmured. "Just a dream." Memory, her mind told her. She ran her fingers through her disheveled black locks. It had been years since she had had one of these dreams. The last one had been when she was (according to this world) twelve-years-old. Emma had been eight. Emma.

Rose leaped from her bed and peeked out of her bedroom into the living/kitchen/dining room of the apartment. Not seeing Emma, she checked the bedroom right beside hers. She sighed with relief at the sight of the blonde-haired young woman still sleeping among a disheveled collection of sheets and blankets. The Swan Sisters as everyone called them had never been separated since they had been found alongside the road together. At least that was the story told in their file, a story an old friend had concocted . . . at least, before he ditched the two of them just a few weeks later.

Rose could have screamed with frustration and despair when Geppetto refused to even consider trusting Pinocchio into her care after finding out she had made a deal with the Dark One. That distrust had forced the separation of mother and child, or father and child. If she had come through the wardrobe just a little bit older, she would have boxed the boy's ears for even considering leaving the home without Emma. But, she hadn't done either of those things. She just held her ground and suffered in that house along with Emma until they were taken out and put in another house.

From that moment to this, Rose had never let anything separate them. Even as they were shuffled from foster home to foster home, she kept them together. She had had to run away and hide in nooks and crannies a few times, but she needed to make sure that fairytale endings came true for everyone she knew in the past and, especially, for Emma.

She had promised herself that she would never tell Emma the truth behind the bedtime stories that she told through the years until Emma's twenty-eighth birthday. Stories she had told Emma from the moment they were found until Emma deemed herself too old for such things at thirteen. Although, after a particularly rough day, she would still ask to hear another of her favorites for old time's sake.

Emma rolled over, her sleepy blue-gray eyes meeting Rose's brown ones. "Still coming to do the morning routine?" she asked, a smile twitching the one corner of her mouth.

Rose shrugged. "I just had a bad dream that made me want to make sure you were okay," she answered. Giving her own half-smile, she added, "There is also that job we have to get done ASAP."

Emma's smile captured her mouth but didn't reach her eyes. "How do you think he'll react?"

As her sister got out of bed, Rose replied, "My guess is that he will race from the restaurant and try to get a fast getaway in his car. You're hoping that he has the sense to just cooperate."

"50/50 chance," Emma said, choosing a sleeveless, fashionably tight dress for the "date." "Finally going to place a bet?" she asked.

"No way," Rose countered. "I am already buying the birthday things, and since it's your special day, I'm not letting you take over that."

"You really think that I'm wrong, don't you?" Emma asked, slipping by to enter the bathroom.

"You just have to be prepared," Rose reminded her. "Oh, and do yourself a favor and don't where those uneven platform shoes. You aren't a ballerina, and even if you were, those are the wrong kind of toe-shoes."

"Well, since, I'm going to be prepared," Emma replied, flashing a teasing smile, "I won't have to worry about running."

Rose rested on the hood of a car, listening to an ipod that was really a communication device. Emma wore an invisible earpiece in her ear and a microphone under the strap of her dress, further hidden by her hair. The operation that they had spent the entire day working on was about to be put into action. Emma had painted her nails to match her red dress and had given her hair a few curls that denied its usual half-limp appearance. Chatting online most of the afternoon and half the evening with their quarry had insured that he wasn't setting them up or suspecting that they were out to catch him.

"Looking, looking, found," Emma muttered softly through the earpiece.

"Great," Rose whispered into her "ipod." "Just make this as quick as possible. I don't want to hear any food on this end."

"Noted," Emma replied.

A moment later, a faint masculine voice filtered through, "Emma."

"Ryan," Emma returned in greeting. "You look relieved."

"Well, it is the internet," Ryan answered.

Rose could nearly imagine that Ryan was being the gentleman he should be in helping Emma take her seat before returning to his own.

He continued, "Pictures can be–"

"Fake," Emma interrupted, "outdated, stolen out of a Victoria's Secret catalogue."

"You better not have done that for your page," Rose fiercely whispered. As expected, Emma ignored her.

After the rather usual exchanges of "so's," Ryan offered, "Tell me something about yourself."

Rose waited to hear how Emma would handle the question. "Oh, well, uh. Today's my birthday."

"And you're spending it with me," Ryan declared, apparently pleased. "What about your friends?"

"Oh, kinda a loner," Emma replied.

"And you don't like your family," he assumed.

"No family to like," Emma told him. "Except for an older sister, but she's busy today."

"I was about to say, everyone has family," Ryan said.

"Technically, yeah," Emma said, "and everyone knows who they are."

Rose felt horrible as Emma spoke those words. For the past twenty-eight years, she had kept their family a secret. This not knowing would end today. As soon as they were back in their apartment, she would tell her little "sister" everything.

She pulled herself back to reality as Emma asked, "I need to run yet?"

"Oh, not a chance," Ryan assured her. "You, Emma, are by far the sexiest, friendless, orphan that I have ever met."

As Emma laughed, Rose warned, "Don't let yourself get charmed."

"Okay," Emma said, "your turn. No, wait, let me guess. . . . Um, you are handsome, charming."

"Go on," Ryan replied.

"Just cut to the chase," Rose sighed. She did not want to hear more of this "romantic date."

"The kind of guy who, now stop me if I get this wrong," her voice immediately changed from charming to confidential, "embezzled from your employer, got arrested, and skipped out of town before they could you throw into jail."

The man's reaction was typical: a barely audible word soaked with a pasted-on smile, "What?"

Emma went on, "The worst part of it is your wife. Your wife loves you so much that she bailed you out and how do you repay that loyalty? You are out on a date."

"Nice way to put it, sis," Rose complimented.

"Who are you?" Ryan asked.

"The chick who put up the rest of the money," Emma answered.

"A bail bondsman," the man guessed.

"A bail bonds person," Emma confirmed.

Three, two, one, Rose silently counted. The muted crash of an overturned table with tinkling glass confirmed her assumptions. "Told you," she announced.

Emma sighed. "Really?" she replied. "Just make sure he doesn't see you."

"On this dark night? Where he parked? Desperate to get away? I doubt he would notice me," Rose answered. Seconds later, blasting car horns alerted her to their shared target. She kept her face averted so that he would only catch sight of her black clothes and hair. A couple more car horns told her that Emma was approaching. The pale beige car she was laying on beeped a couple times as Ryan unlocked the doors. The car rocked underneath her as he jumped in and tried to gun the engine. She turned in time to see him open his door again so he could look out to see what was keeping him from running. Rose knew what he would find, the locked tire and her sister.

"You don't have to do this," Ryan tried to reason. "I can pay you. I got money."

"No, you don't," Emma returned.

"And, if you did," Rose added, rolling onto her stomach so she could face the man, "you should give it to your wife and take care of your family."

"And what do the two of you know about family, huh?" Ryan challenged.

Rose gave him a hard glare. "Wrong thing to say," she told him.

Emma confirmed her words with one quick step forward, grabbing him, and bashing his head against the steering wheel. Resting her wrist against the top of the doorframe she muttered, "Nothing, really."

"Just that family never gives up on each other," Rose told her, slipping off the car's hood. "And, true families always stick together."

Emma gave her a sad smile. "Yeah," she replied. Her gaze returned to the unconscious man in the car. "It just doesn't help much when your parents abandon you on the side of the road, whether you're with your sister or not."

Rose bit her lower lip. Today. She had to tell Emma the entire story today. Not only did Emma need to hear it for herself, but also for her parents.


Author's Note: So, we now have our world. What do you think of Rose and Emma? Do you think they make good sisters? How do you think Emma will react to Rose's planned news?