The sun had well and truly set by the time that Regina had reached the green sign that said: 'Leaving Storybrooke'.
"Yes," Regina said to herself out loud. "I finally am."
However, her legs were aching from the long, lonely walk across town. Regina knew that she wouldn't be able to do much more of this without stopping for breaks every five minutes. She would probably collapse and pass out if she continued to persist. It was a shame that there were no buses or trains that went through Storybrooke. There weren't even any taxi services that would go beyond the town line. Just when Regina was on the verge of giving up and sitting down on the concrete sidewalk, she heard a car behind her slow down and eventually pull up on the side of the road. Regina winced at that sound, hoping and praying that it wasn't either of her parents.
"Are you lost?" a man's voice called out. Regina turned around. The man had his head poking out of the window of the driver's seat.
"No," she said. "I'm leaving Storybrooke."
"What a coincidence, so am I! My name's Jefferson. Need a ride?"
Regina looked at him, before taking a few tentative steps towards the car.
"Whereabouts are you headed?" asked Regina.
Jefferson shrugged. "As far away from here as I can. What about you?"
Regina was hesitant to let anyone know of her plans. For all I know, he works for my mother, she told herself. However, she was fully aware that there would be no making her way to Daniel all on her own.
"Odessa," she admitted. "In Texas."
"Texas?" said Jefferson with a scoff. "Were you planning on walking all the way there?"
"Well, no," replied Regina, crossing her arms. "I was planning on walking out of Storybrooke, then finding another way to get there. Nobody goes through this town, so..."
"That's very true," Jefferson mused out loud. "I wonder why that is."
Neither of them spoke for a few moments. Then, Regina cleared her throat.
"So, will you take me there?"
"Will I take you all the way to Texas?" said Jefferson. "Yeah, sure. I have nowhere else to be. Hop in."
Regina got into the passenger seat, only to feel something beneath her when she sat down. She reached behind and pulled out a stuffed toy rabbit.
"Oh, don't mind him," murmured Jefferson. "He doesn't bite."
Wonderful, Regina thought to herself. I've gotten into a car with a crazy person.
"Are you from here?" she asked. "I can't say I've ever seen you around town."
Jefferson shrugged. "I like to keep a low profile, and I'm not exactly much of a 'people' person."
"Right," said Regina. She decided to look out the window, as Jefferson resumed driving down the winding road out of Storybrooke. They drove on in silence for a while, and in that silence, Regina briefly wondered if she was in danger. She had always been told not to ride with strangers - especially when they were the ones who offered to take you. Mother had always said that.
Well, she doesn't control me anymore, Regina reminded herself. She looked down at the toy rabbit that now rested in her lap, which she had been absent mindedly stroking, and wondered what it was doing in Jefferson's car.
"Do you have kids?" she asked. The question seemed to startle Jefferson.
"No," he said after a few seconds of silence. "Not anymore."
"Not anymore?" Regina echoed. "What happened?"
Jefferson turned his gaze away from the road ahead to face her. "I'm not in the habit of sharing my life story with people I don't know."
He had gone from somewhat eccentric but generally cheerful to surprisingly solemn in a short amount of time. Regina found herself feeling awkward.
"Sorry," she muttered, turning to look back out the window. She heard Jefferson heave a sigh.
"I had a daughter once. Her name was Grace," he said. "I had a wife and a job, too. I used to be happy, living here. Then, one day, Grace disappeared without a trace. One minute, she was playing in our front yard. The next minute, she's gone. For years, the police searched everywhere for her. All over town, every neighborhood, even the forests. We never saw her again, or found out what happened to her. After that, it didn't take long for things to turn sour between me and my wife. She ended up leaving me and moving to Boston, and I never heard from her again. Both my wife and daughter vanished from my life. Then, I lost my job. Indefinite stress leave, they said. I never came back to that job. I was alone and depressed, without purpose or meaning. Only when I was on the brink of throwing my life away, someone approached me, offering to find information about my daughter in exchange for my services and loyalty."
"Who?" asked Regina.
"Cora Mills," Jefferson replied. "Your mom."
Regina tensed at this, her eyes growing large. "You work for my mother?"
"I did work for her. Past tense. She promised to find my daughter," said Jefferson, "and she broke that promise. I did terrible things for her because I thought she would reunite me with my Grace, but it turns out she played me for a fool."
"She does that," Regina said quietly, looking down at the toy rabbit. "Plays with people. It's all just a game to her."
Jefferson cackled at that. "Well, of course you would know better than anyone, being her daughter and all."
"You're not going to tell her where I'm going, are you?" she wanted to know. "I never want to see her again."
"Of course not," he said, shaking his head slowly. "The way I see it, this is poetic justice. She tricked me into thinking that I'd see my daughter again, and now she'll never see hers. It's fitting, don't you think?"
Regina heard herself swallow. "Yes, she won't see me... because I'm going to see Daniel."
"Yes, yes," said Jefferson merrily. "You have nothing to fear from me, Regina. I may be somewhat unstable, but I'm only dangerous to those who wrong me."
"I'll keep that in mind," replied Regina, staring at the road in front of them.
After about half an hour of driving along the long, lonely road flanked by forest, they came upon a gas station which doubled as a café. Jefferson got out of the car to fill the tank with gas, and Regina stepped out to stretch her legs and look around. The deep indigo night sky was alive and shimmering with stars, and it gave Regina a sense of freedom that she hadn't felt in...
In forever? she pondered. Jefferson fished out some cash from one of his pockets and handed it to Regina.
"Go pay for the gas," he said. "And buy us some dinner, okay? Oh, and I'm vegetarian, by the way."
"Right," said Regina, taking the money before walking inside. She paid for the fuel, and bought two salad sandwiches. When she realized that there was change leftover, she also bought two cans of Coke for the road. When she returned to the car, Jefferson saw the pair of cans and frowned.
"I don't like Coke."
"Alright then," Regina said with a shrug. "More for me."
When they had both finished their sandwiches, there was more driving to do. Jefferson advised Regina to get some sleep, since they wouldn't be stopping for a while. Regina didn't go to sleep, but she pretended to. She still didn't completely trust this man. Trust had a habit of coming back and biting you in the ass later on, so it was something that needed time and patience to determine whether someone was truly trustworthy or not. By the time Regina decided to open her eyes again and act as those she had just woken from a refreshing nap, she was surprised to find that three hours had passed.
"Aren't you tired?" she asked.
"I slept in late this morning," said Jefferson. "I won't be needing to sleep for a few more hours yet."
Regina frowned. "And what about when you do need to sleep? I'm not too keen on staying in the middle of nowhere until you wake up."
"Don't you know how to drive?" Jefferson asked.
"Of course," said Regina. "It's just that... my mother said I couldn't get a car until I was eighteen."
Jefferson gave a smirk. "You are aware that your mom is a cold bitch, right?"
"As you said, I would know that better than anyone."
"That's true," he replied with a chuckle. "By the way, I've been wondering... what's in Odessa, Texas anyway?"
"Not what, but who," Regina muttered. "I, uhh, I'm not sure I feel like talking about it."
"Oh, come on," said Jefferson. "I told you all about me and my dead daughter. You owe me a story, Regina."
Regina sighed. "Alright, alright... his name's Daniel. He lives there. He used to live in Storybrooke, and went to my school. Then, when Mother found out about him, she had him expelled and later drove him and his family out of town."
"Jeez."
"Yeah. Until today, I just accepted that I'd never see him again..."
"Until you decided to defy Cora," Jefferson finished.
Regina nodded. "She's probably got every cop in Storybrooke looking for me now. I guess that makes me a fugitive, and you an accessory."
"I'm a fugitive from Cora's wrath as well," said Jefferson. "Why do you think I'm leaving Storybrooke?"
"She's after you, too?" said Regina, raising her eyebrows. "What did you do to get her angry?"
It took a few seconds for Jefferson to respond. "Isn't it obvious? I disobeyed her."
"I gathered that, but what did you do? You said my mother hired you for your services... what did you do for a living?"
"Well, I... you promise you won't freak out?"
"Maybe."
"Promise."
"Okay, fine, I promise. Now tell me."
"I formerly worked as a professional hitman," said Jefferson. "Sometimes I took people out in exchange for payment from powerful clients. Other times, I was simply hired to... extract information from people."
"What?" Regina said, paling slightly. "You mean, like, torture?"
"In my line of work, we don't refer to it as torture," Jefferson replied. "Nobody would do it if they called it 'torture'. We simply called it a method of gaining information."
"Hmm. Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, though, does it?"
That made Jefferson laugh. "No, I guess not, but it does sound less gruesome."
"So, that's what you did for my mother?" asked Regina, trying to mask her uneasiness. "You've... killed people for her?"
"What? No, no, no," Jefferson replied. "If she wants to have someone killed, she goes to her special detective friend on the police force. She only got me to kidnap and torture people for information."
Regina rested the back of her head on the seat behind her. "I mean, I knew she wasn't exactly moral when it came to dealing with things like that. She managed to brush my fight with Eloise Gardener under the carpet pretty easily, although I still don't know how. But... torturing people? I can't even imagine her condoning something like that."
"Of course you can't," said Jefferson. "Cora Mills is a lot of things, but at the end of the day, she's still your mom."
Regina turned her face away from him. "She is, but that doesn't mean I have to love her, or be okay with the sort of person she is."
"I'm not asking you to. I loathe your mom even more than you ever could."
"If you hate her so much, why not tell the police everything you've done for her?" Regina asked.
Jefferson snorted. "And forfeit my own freedom in the process? If I told the world the things I did for your mom, she would do everything in her power to drag me down with her. I, for one, quite like not being in prison. It's not a nice place."
"I can imagine," Regina said.
"No," said Jefferson, and something in his voice changed. "You can't imagine. Not unless you've been there yourself."
"Have you... been in prison, then?"
"More than once," Jefferson answered. "You don't do what I've done without getting caught sometimes. Unless, of course, you're the most skilled hitman in the country. In the end, though, I've always managed to wriggle free. I have made a lot of enemies, though. Enemies far worse than your mom. If I were to ever return to prison, I would be dead on my first night there."
"Shit," said Regina. "No wonder you keep such a low profile."
When the first rays of sunlight from the dawn reached out across the clouds, Jefferson yawned.
"Alright," he said. "I need to sleep before I end up crashing into a tree. You alright to drive?"
"I should be," Regina said. Jefferson stopped the car on the side of the road, and they swapped seats. She adjusted the seat forwards, got a feel for where everything was, and then they set off again, back onto the road.
"How are you liking it?" Jefferson asked, as he tucked the toy rabbit behind his head to use as a makeshift pillow.
"This is fucking great!" she exclaimed, smiling. "So much easier than the car I had to use for driving lessons."
"They probably had you driving a manual car," he said. "This is automatic. Much less complicated."
After Regina had been driving for about five minutes and showed no signs of driving off the road and crashing, Jefferson closed his eyes and went to sleep. Regina had never felt so free in her entire life. Here she was, driving a car all by herself, leaving Storybrooke behind and heading towards a new chapter of her life. A world where she was no longer under her mother's control. It was all she had ever wanted her life to be. After a couple of hours, Jefferson woke up and looked around to see where they were.
"How long do you think it'll take to get to Odessa?" Regina asked.
"From here? In this car?" Jefferson said, then thought for a moment. "Well, let's see. Odessa is in the western region of Texas, I think, so... about three days of driving. Yeah, three days or so. That's over two thousand miles of driving."
Three days, Regina thought eagerly. And then I will see Daniel again.
"That isn't as bad as I'd thought," she said. "I assumed we'd be driving for about a week."
"Trust me when I say it'll feel like a week," replied Jefferson. "Driving from Maine to Texas is no quick feat."
"I guess you'd know," Regina said. "I'm assuming you've traveled a lot, y'know... to work."
Jefferson nodded. "I've been pretty much everywhere. All over the world. Every continent on the planet."
"Even Antarctica?"
"Oh, yes," replied Jefferson. "Twice."
Regina scoffed. "Really? I don't think I believe that."
"Believe it," Jefferson said. "You'd be surprised how many people in Antarctica want to murder their co-workers."
"Well then," said Regina, "I suppose I'll just have to take your word for it."
For the next twenty minutes, neither of them spoke. When Jefferson finally did, Regina nearly jumped in her seat.
"So, you're traveling all the way to see Daniel, a boy who you haven't seen in... a year? Two years? Someone you haven't contacted since your mom forced him out of Storybrooke. What makes you think he wants you to find him? How do you know he hasn't moved on? If he has, what will you do?"
Regina had thought about all of those things, but chose to ignore the possibilities. She shrugged.
"I don't know," she said. "There's nothing saying that we couldn't still be friends. Anyway, I was the one who moved on from him. I fell in love again, with a boy named Robin. My mom recently kicked him out of our school after she framed him. When I decided that I was going to leave home, his house was the first place I went. I begged him to run away with me, so we could start a new life together, but he refused. So I left him behind."
"Are you really surprised?" Jefferson said.
Regina frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You are aware that the two of you are only, what, sixteen years old?"
"I'll be eighteen in a few months," she said defiantly.
"Still teenagers," replied Jefferson. "Nobody wants to start a life with someone else at eighteen. Youth is the only time people are free to experience all sorts of things. You don't want to tie yourself down with anyone at eighteen, for God's sake."
"You're still relatively young," said Regina. "What age did you and your wife get married?"
"Eighteen," he admitted, "and our marriage ended up decaying into resentment and misery, until she left me."
"Did she know?" Regina asked. "Did she know about... your job?"
"Oh, she knew," Jefferson said, a small smile playing on his lips. "More than that, actually. She was in the business, too."
Regina's eyes widened. "What? She killed people as well?"
"Well, no. I should rephrase that. My wife is in a business that's similar to mine, that draws more or less the same clients. Her job was simply to find people. People who didn't want to be found."
"Wow," said Regina. "So, what, were you two like a power couple or something?"
"Yes, actually, I guess you could say that," replied Jefferson. "We were definitely a good team."
Regina had been mulling over something for a while, to do with what Jefferson had said before. She had been wondering whether to say anything to him about it, but now she decided that she would take the plunge.
"You told me that you've made a lot of enemies," Regina murmured. "Have you considered that maybe... one of them had something to do with your daughter disappearing?"
Jefferson nodded. "Of course I've considered it, but I have too many enemies to count. Besides, if it were intended to be an act of revenge from one of them, they'd make sure that I knew it. They would have killed her and then left her somewhere for me to find."
"Or maybe they knew that you not knowing what happened to her would drive you mad even more than actually knowing if she was dead or not," said Regina. She felt Jefferson tense up beside her.
"I... I actually hadn't considered that," he said softly.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't stick my nose into your business like that. It was just bugging me, that's all."
"Never apologize," Jefferson told her. "The happiest people are the ones who are blissfully ignorant of their own faults."
"You mean, arrogant people?"
"That's exactly what I mean."
Regina shook her head. "I've never liked arrogant people. I just can't understand how anyone could ever be so... stupid."
"That's arrogant of you to think that arrogant people are stupid," said Jefferson, smiling at her.
"You know what I mean," said Regina. "Also, my arms feel like they're going to drop off. Could you drive? Now that you're awake."
"I was wondering when you'd ask." They swapped seats once again, and Regina slumped in the passenger seat. This time, she let herself fall asleep.
FOUR MONTHS LATER
Cora Mills was filling out some paperwork in the principal's office when her phone buzzed. When she checked it, Cora saw that there was No Caller ID. She let out a sigh, and then answered it, wondering if it was Jefferson.
"Hello?"
A voice, modified to be deeper than it was, answered. "Cora Mills."
"Who is this?" she demanded.
"You may not know my name," the voice responded, "but you can call me Bo Peep."
Cora leaned back in her comfortable chair. "Ah, I see. So this is the infamous Bo Peep."
"I have been told that you require my services."
"That's right," said Cora. "I need you to find someone for me."
"And who is it you want me to locate, Mrs Mills?"
"My daughter. Her name is Regina."