A/N: This chapter takes place in parallel to the events of 1.17 Hat Trick. I am not going to repeat the narration of the Emma/Jefferson scenes from that episode, the reader should assume they happened relatively unchanged between these scenes.

Emma was driving home from the office late at night. She had finally given up on getting someone from outside the town to come in and take over the Nolan murder case. Trying to call the feds had gone even worse than trying to reach someone at the state police. She had spent all the previous day being bounced between of all places the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Smithsonian Folger Shakespeare Library, and the National Park Service publicity department. She was starting to wonder if something or someone was making it impossible to reach outside authority. But before she could think too hard about it she came into work that morning to find that an intern at the National Park Service had sent her 1,500 Smokey the Bear fire safety badges. Overnight.

A murder case was a lot of work, and with the preliminary hearing the next day, Emma had to hunker down and resign herself that she had to deal with the case she had. It certainly looked rather solid, or as solid as nobody cases were. Even with a heart and DNA tests, juries were always jumpy about lack of a body. And then there was the defendant, who of course was going to show up to court wearing a cardigan and looking sweet and innocent.

She remembered one of her first murder cases back in Boston. The defendant looked like Mr. Rogers and had the jury eating out of his hand until she'd shown them the crime scene photos of him covered in blood.

Too bad Mary Margaret Blanchard hadn't been stupid enough to be caught in the act covered in blood.

Henry had grumbled when she told him that he'd be spending the night at his grandmother's because she had to work. But he at least seemed to have learned that 'she's the Evil Queen' wasn't going to work as an excuse to get out of spending time with her. She just wished he'd drop it because she thought her mom died a little inside every time he said it in her earshot.

It was fairly late when she decided to give up on trial prep for the night and head home in the foggy mist. She didn't see the man walking on the side of the road until it was too late ...

Her heart was beating at about a million miles an hour when she got out of the car. "Are you alright?"

She thought she knew just about everyone in town, but the attractive man in the great goat and scarf around his neck was new. "Yes, I'm fine."

Except he was clearly limping, and the human in Emma overtook the lawyer. "You should let me take you to the hospital."

"I don't really need it, my house is just up there..."

He gestured up the road.

"At least let me take you home, mister?"

"Jefferson. My name is Jefferson."

He took her gun when she was out cold. The tea... what had been in that tea? She'd briefly managed to get free long enough to discover of all people he had Mary Margaret Blanchard tied up in one of the bedrooms, but not enough time to even ask what the hell she was doing there before they were both caught by the mad man. In her career as a prosecutor Emma had run into a lot of mad men, and Jefferson certainly qualified. She tried to go along with his demands, and rather to her own amazement even managed to construct a hat that didn't look like a five year old had made it given that she'd never made a hat before.

But that only seemed to agitate him more, as the hat didn't do what he wanted. She wasn't trying hard enough. The magic wasn't working. He kept grumbling about the Queen, and every time he did Emma got a sinking feeling that Henry had been talking about his fantasy to entirely the wrong sort of people. Why she had never been able to teach Henry about stranger danger she would never know.

Jefferson tossed her in the room with Mary Margaret, and both women put aside their animosity of the moment to try and get free from the ropes. The first thing that they managed was the gags. The rope bindings were going to take more work.

"What are you doing here anyway, why aren't you in your cell?" Emma asked in exasperation as she worked.

"I went for a walk."

"You escaped."

"There was a key."

"Damn it David..."

"He didn't help."

"Your illicit lover, the sheriff, didn't help you escape when you were about to face justice for murdering his wife?"

"I'm innocent. But you don't care about that. Isn't it your job to care about that Emma?"

"Miss. Mills. And I'd care about it if there weren't a pile of evidence against you."

She could hear Mary Margaret sigh. "Emma... I taught you in school. You know me. I'm not a murderer."

"I've met a lot of murderers that didn't seem like it, Miss. Blanchard."

"Do you think while we're trying to escape the man who thinks he's the Mad Hatter we can maybe at least go for first names and you can call me Mary Margaret?"

Emma concentrated on the ropes for a bit before answering. She really didn't want to talk about the case. But it wasn't exactly like this was a normal circumstance. "Alright, so who is framing you? Who would have motive?"

"I don't know..." Mary Margaret answered with a quiet sigh. "I really don't know. I mean before everyone turned on me the only person in town who hated me was..."

"My mother. Please don't tell me you are about to accuse my mother of framing you."

"Your son thinks she did."

"My son has more psychological problems than Archie Hopper appears qualified to handle."

"You think he's crazy?" There was sadness in the teacher's voice. "He's very smart. As you know, so special, so creative. And as I think you know... lonely."

"He can't separate fantasy from reality. And I don't know how to help him."

"Perhaps listen to him first before you try and help him more."

"He thinks my mother is a fairy tale villain. Who does he think you are?"

"It's silly."

"We're being held hostage by a nut case who wants me to make him a magic hat. I think we're beyond silly."

"Snow White."

Emma paused. Henry kept insisting that she was really the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming. "And he thinks I'm..."

"Yeah. I know."

"We need to get free."

Emma couldn't have really told you how the fight actually happened. There was a telescope and Mary Margaret had kicked him out a window. But when they went to see where he was he was gone. They were standing outside the house, next to her BMW awkwardly trying to decide what to do.

"I can't stop you from running." Emma finally admitted. "I'm a lawyer, not some sort of one woman army."

"I... I need to go back. I can't run from this. Running isn't me."

"Running is very Snow White if my son's stories are to be believed."

"Well, perhaps I'm not Snow White."

Emma sighed, and looked over at the rising sun for a minute. "Nothing about this night happened. I'm going to take you back and you never escaped. Deal?"

And Mary Margaret just nodded.