Storybrooke, Present Day

"I'm Mary Margaret Blanchard."

No, Emma thinks. This can't be happening. She is numb. She can't feel anything. She doesn't want to feel anything- but a tidal wave of emotion is slowly growing inside her, teetering at the edge and bringing her to breaking point. Her breaths become shallow and her fingers twitch convulsively, scrunching up the thin hospital sheets in her fists. Her mother isn't here. She can't be here after she abandoned them. This pixie-haired woman in front of her is just someone who looks like the person she used to love.

It's not her, it's not her, it's not her.

She keeps telling herself that until she almost believes it, but the illusion she creates is fragile. Thin as glass, it's a delicate web of lies she manages to pull around herself in the little time she has. It's nothing compared to the walls she's built in the past three years. The slightest flick could shatter it into a million pieces and let the awful truth in.

Deep breaths. It's not her, it's not her, it's not her. She needs to say something, doesn't she? She needs to answer this Mary Margaret Blanchard and thank her for her offer.

(She wants to run. She wants to run and run and run and never come back.)

She opens her mouth, but the words are stuck in her throat. Thank you for helping us out, she needs to say. We appreciate the offer, she needs to say- but her mind is such a jumble of everything and nothing and it's not her, it's not her, it's not her that she can't say anything at all. For the briefest second, a film of tears blurs her vision before she blinks them away.

Don't let them see, a voice in her mind whispers. Don't let them know that something's wrong. She fixes her mask- the one that's protected her for all these years- into place. She can do this. It's nothing, isn't it? She just has to handle these two strangers- and figure out why on earth she collapsed in pain by the side of a road- before they can be on their way. She's done it hundreds of times. She can do it now.

But she's gone too long without saying something. Sherriff Graham is looking at her expectantly- and slightly worriedly- from the corner of the room and Mary Margaret Blanchard is unconsciously fiddling with her ring, looking at her with a hopeful expression that is slowly fading as the silence grows.

"I hope Graham told you about my offer," Mary Margaret blurts out after a few more seconds of waiting.

Emma manages to nod. "He did. Thank you." The words are choked, but they are still there, which she counts as a small victory. "I hope it's not too much trouble for you." It becomes easier with each passing second.

She's internally warring with herself. Part of her wants to never see Mary Margaret- or her mother- again. She can refuse the offer. She can slip out of town once she's healed enough; it won't be too hard with all her experience. She doesn't owe these people anything. She can do what she wants. Another part, the part which refuses to believe in the lies she's told herself, the part which misses the time when her family was whole, wants to desperately search for any hints of their mother in this person's face, wants to believe that this is her mother and not just a random lookalike who happened to cross their path.

"No, not at all," Mary Margaret replies kindly, a small smile lighting up her face. "I'll leave you to recover, shall I?"

Emma nods, trying not to think about how similar- and how different- that smile was to her mother's. The same slight tilt of her head, the same kindness in her eyes- but Mary Margaret's smile lacks the spark her mother's had. She's a different person, Emma tells herself again. She's not Snow White.

But she can't help herself. She's still hiding behind that wall of hers, but some hope has seeped through. Her anger and her denial fade away for a single moment and she allows herself to think of the possibility. Maybe Mary Margaret is her mother. Perhaps she's just acting- just like Emma is right now- to fool these people. Maybe, once Graham is out of the room, she'll run to Eva and Nicko and her and tell them how much she missed them and how she's so, so sorry for leaving them behind three years ago.

"Mo- Mary Margaret?" she calls to the woman who has just reached the door. She has to be sure. She wants to believe, for just this moment.

Mary Margaret- my mother, Emma allows herself to think for a second- turns around, pulling her white cardigan around herself tightly. "Yes, Emma?"

Emma's gaze flicks over to Nicko and Eva. They are standing slightly behind Graham, their expressions guarded, tears silently making their way down Eva's face. Right before her eyes leave them, she thinks she sees Nicko give an imperceptible shake of his head. What does he want to say? What do they know?

She focuses back on Mary Margaret. "Have we ever met before?"

Emma watches as Mary Margaret's eyes become hazy. It's frightening, but not because it's the way people's eyes look when they're remembering something. It's frightening because it looks as if Mary Margaret is trying to remember something, but it's just out of her reach. "I don't know," she finally says once the mist has cleared from her eyes. There's no trace of deceit on her face, and Emma can always tell when someone is lying. "You'd think I'd remember if I had met you before." She shakes her head as if clearing her thoughts. "But I think that's just life. Things get hazy."

She pauses for a few seconds if searching for something to say. "I'll be in the elementary school if you need to call me up for anything. Anyone can give you the school's number- we don't get many new people in Storybrooke," she finally tells Emma.

Emma nods in understanding, hiding the disappointment and heartbreak and plain simple confusion- what kind of answer is I don't know- that is threatening to overwhelm her as best as she can. She watches as Mary Margaret glances once around the room, taking in the three of them, twisting the ring on her middle finger round and round and round-

The ring.

Emma's gaze fixes on it for the second she can see it before Mary Margaret leaves the room.

A circle of simply wrought gleaming silver. A green peridot from another world sparkling in the harsh hospital lights.

It's like she's spinning again. She's falling, falling into the empty space where the walls that protected her used to be, and all the pieces slowly click into place. Mary Margaret is her mother. Her mother is Mary Margaret. This is the curse. This is why her parents never came back.

She looks at everything that's happened in the last few days in a new light. The town- Storybrooke, gods how could she be so stupid. As soon as she stepped across an invisible line, her old wound reopened. Nicko's cut on his forehead reappeared. Eva started limping again. The queen's curse must be limited to this town, its magic clashing with this world's reality at the town borders and creating anomalies. Maybe the curse is the town, which is why it's not on the map, which is why many new people don't come. In fact, if she's right, the last people to come here before they stumbled across the border in over eighteen years would have been Mom and Dad. Everything finally makes sense.

But there's something more. Something hovering at the edge of her consciousness. Something about her father. Where is he? She thinks about what she knows of the curse and tries to figure out what has happened to him. I shall destroy your happiness, the queen had said on the day of her parents' wedding, and if the queen kept to that, she's sure to have made it so that her mother and father would never be together under her rule. A flash of panic runs through her as she considers the possibility that the queen may have killed her father to make her mother suffer, but she pushes it away. No, the witch would have kept him alive, if only to watch her mother live with her happy ending just out of reach.

But it's not that. Emma's sure that she's seen him somewhere, somewhere only yesterday- A glass room, a beeping monitor, an eerily familiar face-

She gasps. She saw him. She saw Dad, and she didn't even recognise him.

What kind of a daughter is she?

Emma's jolted back to reality as Graham steps out of the corner. She rakes her eyes over him after her epiphany and realises who he is. The accent, the curly brown hair, the concerned yet strangely emotionless expression, the position of authority that he holds, the earthy smell of pine that clings to him as he moves with the stealth of a wolf- her mother has told her his story enough times that she knew what he looked like even before she had ever set her eyes on him. He is the Huntsman. The queen's most loyal servant, her most secure prisoner. He is as much a casualty of this curse as her mother.

Her mother, her father, the huntsman, an entire kingdom that she has yet to meet. The Evil Queen has ruined too many lives, destroyed too many dreams.

And now she's going to pay. Emma will make sure of that, even if it's the last thing she does. For her family who doesn't know her. For the people who would have been her friends. For a happy ending for all of them, even if she doesn't get to share in it.

"So," Graham says in the same voice her mother must have heard seconds before she thought she was going to die. "I take it that you're accepting her offer."

Emma nods, her anger barely under control. "Yes," she whispers, her throat tight. "We'll stay at her place for a few days."

Graham leaves after that, and her gaze travels to Nicko and Eva. They don't say anything for a while. They don't need to. She sees that they understand what she's thinking of doing, and that they're ready to support her.

"You sure you want to do this?" she asks them.

Eva jerks her head up and down sharply, and Nicko smirks at her. It's the first real smile she's seen from him in days.

"Oh, absolutely," he says. "I'd like to see the Queen's face after we've finished with her."

She smiles back at the two of them and pushes her blonde curls out of her face.

They're going to bring back all the happy endings.

And take away the Queen's.

Thanks for reading. Next chapter should be up soon.

To xxxLeanniexxx: Wait and see... ;) No, seriously, thank you for showing so much support for my story and writing those awesome reviews. I appreciate each and every one of them.

The same goes for you, HarrylovesGinny09 (nice pen name!). You all motivate me to write faster.

I'd really love it if you left a review telling me what you thought of this chapter!