A/N thank you for all of the reviews on the last chapter XD

Just to clear up, this is where I'll be finishing this this fic. It's mainly just quality updates I've made, it is completely rewritten but it follows the same storyline exactly, I've only rewritten it because I feel that my style has changed slightly since the original, I hope you guys understand :)

Chapter two

"Is she weird?"

Regina closed her eyes as if it would make the question go away, but the sound of a lunch tray being placed next to her told her that wouldn't be happening. If only.

It wasn't as if she had really thought that Kathryn would give up on her quest for more information just because she had tried to deflect the questions during class. Maybe she should have made it her mission to hide during lunch?

It was mostly because she had no idea what she could say about Emma Swan.

After Emma had come back from the hospital, they had all experienced a rather tense dinner, since no one knew what they should say. The new addition wasn't particularly willing to start any conversation, so with the exception of Henry Jr's 10 minute speech about whatever comic book he was reading, the family had sat in silence and ate the lasagne. Emma seemed to like it at least.

Regina finally opened her eyes when another lunch tray was placed on her other side and Ruby slipped into the seat at the same time that Kathryn did and the head cheerleader turned to her friend and said, "what?"

"The new girl…I thought she would be at school today…"

Regina shrugged and turned her eyes back to her food which she poked at for a moment.

The moment that Emma had crossed the threshold of the mansion, Regina couldn't help but think that she was adorable in a very awkward, shy kind of way. If the bespectacled girl acted with more confidence, she had no doubt that she could be considered hot. However, this wasn't really something that she could admit to her friends who had no idea that she considered women in these ways, there was currently only one person who knew and he was unfortunately unavailable at the moment. She really wished that she could dump all of the thoughts on him, but a text wouldn't suffice for those purposes.

It was for this reason that she was pretty sure that she still needed to try and stick with her attitude of refusing to help the new girl, at least to her friends.

"My mom is letting her come to school after her arm is healed in a couple weeks," Regina replied without looking up from her food.

Kathryn nodded and replied, "you didn't answer my first question…is she weird?"

Regina sighed and finally looked first at Ruby and then over to Kathryn.

Ruby didn't seem quite as interested in the situation as Kathryn was, but she still tilted her head as the conversation continued, whereas Kathryn was actively leaning forward.

"I guess so…" Regina said and shrugged again, trying to ignore the churn in her stomach as she insulted Emma. Would it really be that hard to defend her without letting on that she could feel the roots of a crush forming? Based on her previous behaviour, she was pretty sure that any compliment would make her friends at least a little suspicious, so it was for this reason that she added, "she doesn't really talk."

"Would you want to talk if you had to deal with having Regina as your foster sister?" Ruby asked with a smirk.

Regina scowled, she wouldn't really be surprised if Ruby had been waiting to use that line day, she then replied, "you're hilarious as ever, Rubes."

"I try," she said back with a rather proud chuckle, "but seriously, don't you think that we should be giving her a break? It's not easy to be the new kid, especially in Storybrooke."

"You're such a kill joy," Kathryn sighed deeply and speared a lettuce leaf on her plate. It was loud punctuation to her petulance.

"Maybe I'm just a nice person, unlike…" before Ruby could finish her sentence, a potato chip hit her squarely in her face and she instantly picked up something random from her plate, which just happened to be a little pot of salad cream.

Regina grabbed her arm to stop the retaliation, and to prevent Ruby from having to change her shirt before class (again), and Kathryn dropped the pot back to her tray with a huff.

"You two are such children," Regina sighed and then the brunette looked between her two friends to make sure that their little war was over and she put her hands down.

The three of them fell into silence and just ate for a few second, before Kathryn perked up and asked around the lettuce in her mouth, "is she creepy?"

Regina looked over to Kathryn for a moment, who was leaning forward again, and just shook her head, indicating that she wouldn't be answering the question.

Emma would face enough ridicule when she started at Storybrooke High, she didn't need to provide any ammo.

S

Emma's eyes ran over the page as music streamed out of the radio.

Her eidetic memory meant that she was literally incapable of failing a subject as long as she at least looked at the learning materials once. She knew that she had every reason to not even try when it came to school since she could just stare at the page and easily get an A. However, she found that school was the one thing that gave her some kind of consistency. Even if she hadn't actually stayed in the same school for more than eight months, it gave her an escape from the life she had led. No matter how shitty things got, she knew that she had something that every other child got.

Even the best foster families couldn't afford to buy her all of the books that she would need, (the Mills had ordered them before she even arrived), so she had always had to make sure that she would find a way to try and study something, even if it wasn't strictly on the curriculum. She tended to spend most of her time in the local library, so she had to admit that it was rather nice to actually be able to sit on a ridiculously comfortable bed while she worked.

A knock at the door brought her away from the words of the AP chemistry book and she looked up to see Cora standing at the door holding a plate in one hand and a sealed parcel under the other arm.

"May I come in?" She asked with a small smile on her face as she wondered whether she would ever find any of her children happily studying if they have been given permission to not go to school.

Emma's eyes shifted between the objects in the woman's hands. She had already been given about ten books that morning after Cora had a meeting with Principal Gold to confirm the classes that she would be attending in a couple weeks. Most people would have been overwhelmed by the very long list of catch up that she would have to do in order to be allowed to stay in the advanced classes, but Emma was excited.

In fact, she had already hand-written two of the assignments from the list.

Cora crossed the threshold, mentally taking a note that she would need to have the room decorated as soon as possible, but she knew that she was about to be freaked out by what she was about to give her, so she decided that could be a conversation for a later time. The girl would also need some new clothing, which would be something that either Regina or Zelena would help with if she gave them her credit card.

"I brought you some lunch," she said and presented plate with the sandwich placed upon it.

Emma frowned and looked over to the clock to see that it was in fact twelve o'clock and she placed the book down. She hadn't even noticed that so many hours had passed since she had picked up the first book and she also didn't notice that her stomach was grumbling slightly, it was crying out in hunger.

"Thank you," she said as she stood from the bed to accept the plate. She was about to sit back down, but she frowned as she looked at the sheets that were probably more expensive than everything she had brought with her in the duffel bag.

"It's your bed, dear, you can eat on it if you want," the older woman said and chuckled lightly.

Emma relaxed slightly and sat back down among all of the paper and books and placed down next to her, "thanks…"

"You don't have to thank me for everything," Cora said as softly as possible, it wasn't as if Zelena, Regina or Henry thanked her for every little thing that she did. Though she did like to believe that the 'thank you' was implied in those situations.

"Sor..."

"And you certainly don't need to apologise for anything," she added with a raised hand before Emma could get the word out.

Emma opened her mouth to apologise, but she hastily closed it and just nodded instead.

"I should also mention, Principal Gold informed me that he can wait to meet you until your first day as you've already met your buddy…"

Emma felt her stomach twist as it hit her who this would be and she asked almost cautiously, "Regina?"

"Is that a problem, dear?" Cora asked, her face pinching a little as she wondered whether it was best to change the arrangement, would she be able to find someone more suitable at such short notice? She had hoped that living with her buddy would make things easier for Emma, but there had been some doubt in her mind, "I know that Regina can be quite…" she trailed off an searched for the right word, was it wrong to call your daughter 'intimidating'?

Emma quickly shook her head and said, "no, honestly it's...fine…" hoping that the woman wouldn't be able tell that the thought of spending more time with Regina was bothering her because of how gorgeous she found her to be.

Cora tilted her head, clearly trying to figure it out, but she didn't know her well enough to discern exactly what her expression meant. She decided to just push it aside and resolved to talk to talk to Regina later about what she expected of her as Emma's buddy.

The pair remained silent for a moment until it hit Cora that there was a primary reason for coming into the room (though giving Emma as much food as she wanted would almost always be on the top of her priority list). The slightly heavy box under her arm probably should have been the biggest reminder of her goal, to be fair.

She stepped forward and placed the box onto the bed and motioned for the girl to grab it, which she promptly did with a curious frown.

"What is it?" Emma asked as she inspected it, though the only defining feature was the address printed on the label.

"There's one way to find out, dear," Cora replied, amusement clear in her tone.

Emma nodded slowly as she reached over to grab the key on the bedside table that she had been given earlier. Once she had the box firmly balanced, it wasn't too difficult to slice through the packing tape despite having only one available arm, and she placed the key back onto its spot.

Cora looked on in anticipation as the girl gingerly ripped open the parcel and slowly pulled out the white box from within it.

Emma's mouth fell open as she stared at the image on the top, before she pushed it onto its side so that the words 'MacBook Pro' printed on the side were visible.

"I wanted it to come with the rest of your school supplies, but there was apparently some delivery issue. With the volume of your work, I believe a laptop is the only logical solution. You can't reasonably be expected to hand write all of your work and the computers in the library are unfortunately outdated..." Cora explained.

Emma continued to stare at the image as she tried to take in that this was supposedly a no-strings-attached gift.

Was there anyway that this could help her with some future election? Although, she did have to consider that the Mills family were obviously well off. Perhaps, she didn't quite understand that Emma would never have even dreamed of having a device like this. A lot of her foster families relied on the fostering for their primary income, so even the best ones couldn't have brought her so much even if they wanted to.

"I..." she started, but found that there were just no words.

Cora watched the many emotions cross over her face and felt her own stomach twist in gilt. She knew that it wasn't her fault that the blonde was so naturally suspicious of everything, but she couldn't stop herself from feeling bad. Her eyes flicked over to the picture of the deceased Swans on the beside table and forced a smile, though she did wonder what the girl's life would have been like if they had lived. She decided that was something that she could dwell on later, which would have the benefit of getting her husband involved in the discussion.

"Eat your lunch first dear, and then you can set up your laptop so you can start on more of your assignments. It would be best to try and do as much catch-up as you can before your first day."

Emma nodded, her eyes never leaving the box and she began to say, "than..." before she thought better of it and clamped her mouth shut.

"You can say 'thank you' occasionally," Cora said with an actual laugh this time.

Emma finally tore her eyes away from the box and actually smiled at the mayor, before she said, "thank you," and hugged the box with her good arm.

"You're very welcome, dear," Cora replied and was about to turn to leave before she added, "oh, I was thinking of asking Regina to take you clothes shopping, would that be okay?"

Emma frowned and considered when the last time she went shopping for clothes was and decided it was a few years ago with the eight month foster family.

"Er...yeah...that would be okay," she said, even though she did feel a little lurch at the thought of spending time with Regina. Surely, the cheerleader wouldn't be thrilled about the arrangement?

Even if she had yet to attend Storybrooke High, she had no doubt that the girl was popular. Why wouldn't she be?

"Are you sure?"

Emma just nodded and placed the box down next to her as cautiously as possible.

"Okay," the mayor replied and looked around the room, trying to figure out if there was anything that she had forgotten. After the silence stretched on, Cora decided that it was about time that she left the girl to her studies and said, "well it appears that you probably have even more work to do than I do. I'll leave you to it, but if you need anything I'll be downstairs in my study."

Emma nodded again and the older woman finally turned to leave the room.

Once Emma was alone, she looked between the sandwich and the MacBook Pro.

Though she was still very much suspicious that there must be a reason behind this generosity and the apparently perfect situation in which she had found herself in, she couldn't help but allow herself to smile with no one around to see it, at least for a few seconds before she got back to work this time chewing as she read.

S

Henry Jr. pitched back and forth on the balls of his socked feet and stared at the door he had been standing at for least two straight minutes now.

It's as quite a simple thing that the thirteen-year-old wanted to ask, the worst answer that he could get would be 'no', but it did weirdly feel like there was a lot riding on the impending interaction.

Steeling his nerves, he decided that it would be worse to have no answer at all and he finally raised his clenched fist and tapped on the door a few times. He waited a few seconds, before a muffled 'come in' from inside the room sounded out and he timidly opened the door.

Henry stood a moment at the crack in the door and just examined the scene before him.

The new addition to the Mills household was sat cross-legged on the bed with the MacBook he picked out in front of her as well as three actual books open on her side and one in her lap. He briefly wondered how it was possible for someone to take in that amount of information at once, he was fairly certain that it wouldn't be something that he would ever be able to do.

"Hey," he said and pushed the door open a little more.

"I thought it would be your mom," Emma admitted.

"Does she come up her a lot?" Henry asked, not al surprised that his mother was freaking out worrying about Emma's comfort, though it was very clear that she was more than at ease in the little fortress of academia that she had created.

Emma shrugged and used her good hand to move the book in her lap over and shifted to give Henry her full attention, "only a couple times," she replied.

"That's not bad actually, dad said she tried to check on Zelena about six times on her first day at school."

Emma's mouth turned up a little, but Henry could tell that there was a certain sadness behind it, though he wasn't aware that neither of them really understood it.

He leaned back against the door and blurted out, "I was wondering if I could ask you something...obviously you don't have to say 'yes', but it would be totally awesome if you did..."

"Okay, what's up?" Emma asked, only a little cautiously.

Henry swallowed hard and said, "mom asked me to unpack all of your school books yesterday...I couldn't even understand a sentence in any of them," and he emphasises his point with a gesture to the pile of tomes cluttered around the bed.

"Aren't you thirteen?" Emma asked, hoping that it didn't come off like she meant it as an insult.

Henry nodded and sighed as he replied, "it's not that...it's just that..." he cut himself off and looked at the green eyes that looked as if they had at least some genuine concern in them, and he forced himself to continue, "I've been doing really bad at school, so they tested me and found out that I have dyslexia...I know it's not really an excuse or anything. My mom had been trying to find people to help me cope with it, but nothing seems to work. I thought maybe...if you want to I mean...you could tutor me since you're like a genius and obviously really good at school."

Emma furrowed her brow and glanced at the amount of books around her, she had never really considered that they would make someone think that she was a genius. However, she decided that didn't exactly make her qualified, even if it were potentially true (she had never been officially tested), and she replied, "why would I be better than professionals?"

"I don't know how to explain it really...it's like since my mom didn't hire you to help me and she wouldn't know that I'm being tutored, there won't be as much pressure to do better...it would just make it easier I think."

"Your parents wouldn't know?" Emma asked.

Henry nodded vigorously, hoping that she would understand just how important that part was, at least for now, "I can tell that they're worried about me even if they won't admit it. If my grades don't get better soon, I won't get into college and I'm sick of being in a class with people who don't even care. I really do try, but nothing seems to work. I understand if you don't want to help me..."

Emma nodded slowly and just replied, "I can try and help...but I've never tutored anyone before..."

Henry ignored the suggestion that she may not do well, since he had no doubt that she would be able to help him. It was probably because he felt like this was his last chance.

"Awesome!" he exclaimed excitedly, "I'm sorry that I can't pay you anything, but I was thinking...at dinner last night, you seemed a little interested in comics...are you a Marvel fan?"

Emma hadn't really been aware that anyone was looking at her during dinner because she had spent all of it looking at her plate, so she did feel a little shocked that someone had noticed her interest in the only topic that was discussed.

"I've read a few comics when the library had them, but I've never gotten to read an entire full story arc...:

"I have like every issue since 2009...you can borrow whichever ones you want whenever you want...who's your favourite?"

"Spider-man," Emma replied with very little thought.

Henry smiled and said, "good choice...I can give you like 10 issues at a time at a time and if you want more, you can tell me and I'll give you the next 10...would that be okay?"

Emma felt a little burst of excitement in her stomach as she mentally added up just how many comics the boy must have based on his description and she replied, "that would be...great...but what exactly do you need tutoring in?"

Henry's own excitement visibly extinguished and he looked like he was starting to blush as he admitted, "everything...I'm fine with math but not doing amazing...but I'm completely failing English..."

Emma nodded without a hint of judgement and said, "do you have a syllabus?"

Henry frowned as he mentally ran through all of the pieces of paper he had been handed throughout the year and quickly came to the conclusion that there was little chance that he would find it in the swirl of documents in his backpack and around his room.

"You can e-mail your teacher and ask for it," Emma added when the look of concentration overtook Henry's face for too long.

Henry click his forefinger and thumb in Emma's direction in triumph and and announced, "I'll do that right now! Thanks Emma, you're the best!"

Emma just watched him go and it wasn't until her door shut that she realised the corner of her mouth was pulling up just a little. Apparently his excitement was infectious.