Mayor Mills and District Attorney Mills were backing opposing candidates in the election for sheriff. The gossip around Granny's Diner was filled with speculation about the royal throw down between the two strong willed Mills women. After all nothing much happened in Storybrooke, and this promised to be the most exciting thing anyone could remember. Except that time when Emma accidently set the football field on fire. And that had gone away after some mutual yelling, and an accusation at Walter for selling cigarettes to a minor by the mayor. Except much to everyone's general surprise, and some people's disappointment neither Regina nor Emma seemed that interested in screaming at each other. At least not where others could hear them.

Emma had spent much of the week before the debate camping out at the Nolan house helping Kathryn prep David. Sydney of course would be well prepared, but Emma tended to know her mother's weak points. Besides the glaring blind spot in acknowledging the potential danger of her own handpicked choice to herself. Emma had never actually liked Sydney. It was not just her aversion to sycophants, but her deep seeded feeling that Sydney was dangerous. He'd do anything for her mother and eventually he might do anything to her if she ever lost control.

And the last thing Emma wanted him to have when that happened was access to a gun and handcuffs. After debate prep was over for the night, David begged off a drink to go check on the animals at the shelter.

"He does that right before bed each night," Kathryn explained as she started to do the dishes. "He's good with the animals."

Emma gave her a small smile. She'd seen Mary Margaret Blanchard out by the old toll bridge about this time of night more than once recently driving home from work. She couldn't say for certain that there was an affair, but Emma rather hoped she was wrong about that. She liked Kathryn, she was sharp and one of the few people in town really fun to talk to about something other than the year's lobster catch or how the local high school lacrosse team was doing. With David's recovery from his coma both she and her mother had found themselves more and more in the Nolan house. Though oddly not at the same time.

She was actually reasonably sure her mother would know if the affair was happening. But that wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to encourage in Regina. The fact that she kept that close a tab on her own enemies made it much harder to get her to listen to Emma's concerns about Sydney.

And she wondered if she was concerned enough about him to start carrying a gun herself. She'd started doing so during her last case in Boston. The one that made her never want to see the worst of humanity again.

"I'm sure he's great with animals. Hopefully he'll be as good with town drunks. I'd really prefer not to see as much of Leroy as I do."

Emma let the deflection pass and vowed to herself that after the election she'd have a word with David about being a better husband.

Grandma... the Evil Queen ... he reminded himself had announced that she wanted to have him down at the stables early that Saturday. He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or happy. To his surprise he really liked riding, even if it was with her. But he'd finally gotten his book back from his mom, though now he carried it in his book bag everywhere in case she decided it was bad again. Whenever he tried to bring the subject up to his mom, she closed it down quickly. He knew it was supposed to be hard to get the Savior to believe, but he didn't think it was supposed to be this hard.

Why couldn't she see it like he did? He had started to fill in Miss. Blanchard about his findings, during journal exercises, but while she encouraged him he knew she couldn't be much help. Snow White was stuck in the Queen's curse. She couldn't rescue herself. What kind of fairy tale would that be? She needed a knight in shining armor to do it, and that was his mom he thought proudly. If only he could get her to stop looking at the Evil Queen blinded by love.

He leaned his bike against the bike rack at the stables and headed towards the stalls, "No Henry, not today."

He turned his head to see his grandmother. She was dressed the way most people did when they were going somewhere, but he knew for her this was down. She had a bucket of rags and brushes in her hand. "Today I'm going to show you how to clean tack. I've been doing it for you before."

That's what she'd been doing still at the stables after he left? Cleaning? That didn't seem like a very royal thing.

Especially not when he learned what she meant. Every buckle and every strap had to be opened up and scrubbed with one of her thousand soft brushes to get every spec of dirt and horse sweet out. And she was exacting. "You shouldn't ever let anyone else do this Henry." She explained as she showed him how to rub the oil into the leather. "If it's done wrong you shouldn't have anyone to blame but yourself."

"Like with a parachute? Captain America insists on packing his own. Except when he jumps out of planes without one. He does that a lot too..."

Regina smiled at him. He wasn't sure it was a good thing for her to be smiling. But he supposed Captain America was a safe subject. "He should really stop doing that," she agreed, "He's super human not magic. But yes, a bit like that. You should never trust anyone else with the welfare of your horse. It could save your life one day."

"You mean like in battle. When you rode into battle."

She grew quiet and tilted her head. "I'm not sure what you are talking about Henry."