Author's Notes: I have a deep fondness for writing AU stories, but this is not another Miles To Go in case anyone will want to jump to conclusions right off the bat.
Just a couple of quick notes...I have deliberately changed Regina's age/past to suit the needs for the specific story I am telling. Certain events in Emma's life have been altered as well. I have tweaked with certain events in the past, present and will do so in the future, but there may be a few nods at canon when and where I deem fit.
Try not to let those things bother you because I plan on taking you readers for a ride! Please don't be afraid to let me know what you think and I ask for a little bit of patience as the burn is slow at first but I promise you it picks up and I never fail to deliver!(at least I hope not!) Enjoy :)
Twenty Years Ago…
The din of happy laughter and shrill shrieking filled the busy playground, dozens of children running about and chasing one another, enjoying their recess as the teacher looked on. Eight yea old Emma Swan sat by herself on the otherwise deserted swings, kicking at the dirt as she watched the other children play. Emma frowned as two older boys ran past her, both of them pointing at her and laughing as they did. She kicked at the dirt and gripped the metal chains harder, the metal biting into her calloused hands as she struggled to remain calm.
If she lashed out and started a fight, they'd send her away. Again. If she caused any problems, they'd send her away. Again. The current home she was living in had been the nicest foster family she'd had so far in all the years she'd been in the system. Her whole life it was all she'd ever known, and all she wanted more than a family of her own was a friend. A friend was something she never had, and with never having been in one home, school, or city long enough to make one, she wasn't sure she'd ever fine someone to call a real friend.
"Hi."
Emma turned in the swing to look at the girl behind her. She'd seen her before on the playground, but they were in different classes and they'd never spoken to one another. Emma raised an eyebrow at the brown haired, brown-eyed girl. Nobody had spoken to her in the month she'd been at the school, at least not outside of the classroom and away from the teachers' watchful eyes.
"Hi," Emma said with a toothy grin. "I'm Emma."
"You're new."
"I am," she nodded. "What's your name?"
"Regina."
Emma slipped off the swing and stuck out her small yet calloused hand towards the slightly shorter girl. "Nice to meet you, Regina."
Regina glanced down at her hand and was hesitant to reach out to shake it, the gesture far too formal for two young girls. When she pulled her hand away, she none too subtly wiped it on her jeans and offered Emma a more polite than friendly smile. Neither said a word otherwise as Regina sat down on the empty swing next to her and they spent the rest of recess there together, alone and away from all the other children.
When the bell rang at the end of recess, Regina was the first to hop off the swing. "We should go line up," she said quietly. "We'll get into trouble if we don't."
"Let them give us trouble," Emma muttered as she stared down at the ground. "Wouldn't be the first time I've been in trouble."
"Do you get into trouble a lot?"
"Often enough," she replied with a shrug. "I can't really get into any trouble anymore. They'd send me back."
"Back where?"
"The orphanage."
Regina looked surprised as she stared at Emma, both of them ignoring the warning whistle from the teacher who was on playground duty and struggling to round up the kids who refused to line up to return to class. Emma shrugged and stuffed her hands into her too small, too short jeans and stared down at the grass. She nearly jumped when Regina laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see a small smile on the other girl's face.
"It's okay, you know, that you're from an orphanage. I was taken from my family a little while ago."
"You were?" Emma asked. It was her turn to look surprised. "Why?"
"My mom isn't around and they say she's not well enough to take care of me. It's only temporary."
"That's what they all say," Emma muttered under her breath as the teacher whistled for a second time. Emma slung her arm over Regina's shoulders. "Guess we ought to go back inside now."
"What about you? Where are you staying? With a foster family?" Regina asked and Emma just simply nodded. "Are they nice?"
"Nice enough. They're always nice at first."
"Until?"
"Until I get into trouble and they don't want me around anymore."
"Oh," Regina's face fell. "That's sad."
"Whatever," Emma shrugged, not moving her arm from around the slightly shorter girl's shoulders and she chuckled as she bumped her body into hers. Upon the third warning whistle she finally dropped her arm from around her and let out a dejected sigh. "Guess we better go inside, huh?"
"We'll get into trouble if we don't."
"You one of those good girls, aren't you, Gina?"
"No, and my name is Regina."
"That's what I said," Emma grinned, tongue in cheek as the third whistle blew and they shared a smile before they took off running towards the doors that led back into the school. Just as they walked past a very aggravated teacher, Emma reached out to stop her before she could walk down the opposite direction of the hall. "Can we play tomorrow at recess?"
"You want to play with me?" Regina asked with a look of surprise. "Nobody ever wants to."
"Well I do, Gina."
"I told you, my name is—"
"Regina, right," Emma laughed and she rolled her eyes as the aggravated teacher grabbed the back of her t-shirt and urged her along to her class. "I'll see you tomorrow, Gina!"
Every day after that for nearly three months, they'd became nearly inseparable. Every day they played at recess and every morning one or the other would wait by the fence at the playground for the other to be dropped off at school. Until one morning, two days before the Christmas break, when Regina never showed up for school. She never showed up the next day and after the break, in the New Year, she never came back then either. Emma had gained and lost her only friend and it wasn't long after that that she'd fallen back into her old habits.
It took only a handful of days after the Christmas break for her to get into a fight with one of the older boys and she was shipped off, yet again, to another home in another city, leaving Boston behind and no idea where to find her only friend.
[X]
Present day…
Emma Swan sat in her yellow Bug and watched the children play on the very same playground she'd once played on herself when she was young. There was only one reason she even remembered that particular school and it was because she had made her first and only friend there while she'd been living in Boston twenty years before. She'd been on a job, hunting down an ex-husband on the run that not only owed thousands in child support to his ex-wife, but also had skipped out on his bail and missed two court hearings. It just so happened that his ex-wife lived in one of her old neighborhoods and she'd taken a slight detour and a trip down memory lane just to have a little bit of a break from a dead-end job.
All her life she'd been in hundreds of different schools, but this one in particular was one she'd only remember because of that brown haired, brown-eyed girl who had become her only friend. She had searched for her over the years, always coming up with dead ends, her boss claiming she could've married or moved out of the country or even just changed her name. Emma knew that if Regina had ever tried to find her, she'd have the very same problem.
She'd always thought of herself as Emma Swan for as long as she could remember when she was a child, but with different homes and different families, her last name was always different depending on where she was and who had taken her in at the time. She couldn't even remember what name she went by when she knew Regina. She couldn't even find out that information for herself because those records were sealed indefinitely.
"Hey," a man said as he rapped on the closed window. "You waiting for your kid?" He asked once she'd rolled down the window. "Ma'am?"
"Uh…no, I—I just stopped for a minute."
The man narrowed his eyes at her, beady little black eyes that made her feel uneasy. She glanced at the horribly sewn badge on his black jacket that said 'security' in faint letters. No matter what her answer was, it didn't make her look good.
"Well, this is a school zone ma'am and unless you have a pass to park on this street, you can't be here."
"I just stopped for a minute."
"From what I saw it's been more than a minute," he replied, his voice taking on an irritated tone. "I need you to leave. Now."
"I'm going!" Emma said as she reached for the keys in the ignition. "Jesus."
There had been another reason she'd stopped, just like she did whenever she passed any elementary schools while she was out driving. Ten years before, she'd given birth to a baby boy during a stint in juvie and he'd been taken from her. She never fought to keep him, how could she have when she was nothing but a high school drop out and a child of the system with nothing to offer a child. She was still a child herself and she couldn't support herself, much less a baby. Still, she always found herself to be curious, always wondering if one of the ten-year-old boys out on the playground was her son.
It was a closed adoption from what she'd found out just five years before when she started looking into where her son had ended up. She'd originally just been worried that he'd been dumped into the system just as she had been, that he had a life just as hers used to be, and a part of her could not stomach knowing that she gave up her son, unwillingly or not, and that somewhere out there a part of her was re-living the childhood—or lack of—she'd gone through herself. Closed adoption or not, it never stopped her from trying to find him to no avail.
The drive back to her apartment in downtown Boston took longer than it should of, her thoughts everywhere else but on the road. She parked in her usual spot and pulled out her cell. She quickly dialed a number and slouched in her seat as the line began to ring.
"Judy, it's me," she said quickly as she held the phone with one hand and absentmindedly traced her fingers over her steering wheel. "I need you to look into something for me."
"Again?" The secretary that worked for the small bail bonds firm groaned on the other line. Phone calls like this, work related or not, were a normal occurrence. "Who is it this time, doll?"
"It's not him," Emma sighed. "It's someone else."
"Give me a name and I'll run it, but let me just remind you that I'm off in thirty minutes. If the computer doesn't finish the search by the time I gotta clock out, I'm gone, do ya hear me?"
"I know," Emma said and she inhaled sharply, clicking her tongue against her teeth as she waited for Judy to shuffle her way from her desk to Mo's to use the computer.
"What's the name, doll?"
"Regina."
"We've searched for this woman a hundred times, what makes you think we'll find her this time?"
"Maybe we need to search for her parents," Emma suggested and she tried in vain to remember the name of Regina's mother, only mentioned once when she'd overheard a few of the teachers talking in the time that the two had gone to school together. "Carly—no, Cora? Cora Miller. I think it was Miller. That sounds right. Try that."
After a few seconds passed and Emma could hear her hesitantly typing the name, Judy sighed loudly and the sound of Mo's chair creaking loudly made Emma wince. "What's so special about her anyway?" Judy asked.
"We were friends a long time ago."
"Ah."
"Is it working?"
"Nah, doll, I'm just keeping you on the line for shits and giggles," Judy replied, her voice dripping with her usual sarcasm. "Of course it's working. Old Mo's computer is a piece of shit. You know how long it takes to do anything on this ancient beast."
"Look, if it's that much of a hassle, I drive around to the office and do it myself, Judy," Emma said as she reached for the keys that were still in the ignition.
"No, no, it's no hassle," Judy said in a rush. "It's pulling up the results now. You sure the last name is right?"
"I have no idea. Regina was in the system like I was. Whatever family she was with at the time, they could've given her their name when she was enrolled in the school."
"Like you."
"Yeah," Emma sighed. "Like me. We were kids, you know? Last names and other formalities weren't exactly important to us."
She could hear the other woman tapping what she knew was likely a pen against Mo's cluttered desk as she waited for the old computer to bring up the search results. They'd been through this many times over the years and every time Emma had managed to completely side-step and avoid Judy's prying questions about why it was so important that she find this woman, especially now after it having been twenty years since she'd seen her last. The truth was, when Emma truly thought of it, she wasn't sure why. She dreamt of those memories she had with Regina when they were children and those moments they shared together had been the only happy ones she could remember.
Happy endings were her only hope in a world where hope was impossible for her to hold on to and yet hope was also the only thing she ever truly had.
Emma picked at the seam of her jeans on the outside of her right knee as she shifted the phone to the other ear. When she heard the computer beep over the line, she straightened up in the seat and waited for Judy to speak.
"Bad news again, doll," Judy said quietly and Emma frowned as her grip on the phone tightened. "There are no Cora Miller's in the database. No C. Miller's either. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Emma said with a dejected sigh. "It's no big deal, really. I must have the wrong name or something."
"She's bound to turn up one day."
"I hope so."
"Emma?" Judy said before she could hang up. "Happy birthday, doll."
"Thanks."
Emma hung up and slipped her phone into her pocket before reaching for the small white box on the seat next to her. A birthday treat to herself, one single cupcake and a single candle waiting upstairs in her almost barren apartment. She pulled the keys out of the ignition and slipped the small box under her arm while reaching for the folder that contained all the files on the current case she was on.
Another birthday, her twenty-eighth, would be spent alone. Nothing ever changed and as she let herself into the building, she wondered, as she always did, if anything ever would.
[X]
Regina Mills watched her son as he sat on the swing at the park away from the other children, kicking at the dirt as he scowled at her. She sighed as she crossed her arms over her chest, not knowing how to get her son out of the current funk he'd fallen into. She wondered if she'd made the mistake of telling him he was adopted on the morning of his tenth birthday because ever since then, he'd been nothing but cold and angry towards her.
"Henry, come along, dear. We need to get home for dinner before it gets too late."
"Whatever," Henry muttered just loud enough for her to hear as he slipped off the swing and stormed over to where she sat on the bench. "What are we having for dinner?"
"Whatever you would like," Regina smiled as she reached out for him. He immediately recoiled and her heart felt like it was breaking all over again, just as it had in the days since she'd told him that he was adopted. "I can even make some pizza if you—"
"You hate pizza."
"Yes, but you don't," Regina said softly and he shrugged as he led the way over to the small parking lot where she parked the car. "Or maybe we could go to Granny's for dinner instead?"
"I'm really not that hungry," Henry said as he walked around to the passenger side of the Mercedes and waited for Regina to unlock the door. "Besides," he said once they were seated inside. "I have homework I need to finish."
"Homework you claimed not to have before we went to the park?" Regina questioned and she was answered with another shrug of his shoulders and a roll of his eyes. "Henry—"
"I forgot about it, okay?" Henry snapped and he shook his head as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Whatever, Mom, I'll have it done before bed time."
Regina pinched the bridge of her nose before she turned the key into the ignition. Henry had been difficult even before she'd told him the truth of his adoption and things were proving only to be getting worse as the days went on. She wanted to turn back the clock to a time when he would lovingly call her Mom again without it being laced with bitter sarcasm. She wanted to go back to a time where her son openly loved her and they enjoyed the time they spent with one another. If only it was in her power, she'd do just that, but she'd made her choice. She could've gone his entire life without telling him he was adopted, but she knew that sooner or later he would have figured it out. He was a bright boy, smart and clever, more so than most children his age.
As she drove home from the park, she paused to glance over at him before turning on to Mifflin Street. He was sitting there with a frown upon his face as he stared absentmindedly out the window. If only he knew how lucky he was to have a family, even if it was just the two of them. If only he knew how lucky he was to have avoided growing up in the system and the system was a place Regina had fortunately only spent almost five months in before her father, Henry Sr. had come to take her in and give her a safe and happy home to live in.
Some of her only memories of her time in the system, aside from the family she'd lived with in that short span of time, and that was of a blonde haired girl she'd befriended. She thought of her often, dreamt of her far more times than she could count on both hands and that was just in the past week alone, more so in the last twenty odd years and never once did she forget those green eyes. Eyes filled with such hope, eyes filled with a lifetime beyond her years, eyes filled with dreams of a future she might never have the chance to live because of certain circumstances.
But that was a time of her life, and someone that her son had no idea about and it was a topic she wasn't quite sure how to bring up. Even in the past handful of days whenever he said some rather hurtful things, one of them being how he wished she'd just left him where she found him, she still couldn't quite find a way to it up. A part of her thought maybe he'd understand that they were not that different, but another part of her wondered if he'd even believe her at all anyway. Her ten-year-old son currently referred to her as the Evil Queen, as per the character in the book he'd grown so fond of in the last six months that was filled with fairytales cover to cover and not so much the conventional ones either.
"Henry—"
Regina sighed as she watched her son bolt out of the car before she barely had it in park and she shut the engine off and reached for her purse in the narrow back seat. With a heavy sigh, she headed inside and she winced as she heard Henry slam his bedroom door. She dropped her keys on the table by the door before climbing the four steps into the foyer.
She needed a drink. A very strong one. Dinner could wait. It wasn't as if Henry would be coming down from his room at any time soon. Not when he was in the state he was in lately…
[X]
Emma entered her apartment for the second time that night. Mo had called almost the instant she had placed her birthday treat down on the counter and she was changed and out on a job within the hour. It'd almost been a bust too, but she wasn't in any mood for some petty almost criminal who had skipped out on his bail because he was having an affair. She scowled as she tossed her keys on the small and narrow island and flipped on the light. Her feet ached from the too high heels she'd chosen to wear with her too tight red dress and she was just about to kick them off when the door buzzer rang.
She dropped the lighter beside the cupcake with the one lonely candle sticking out of the middle and walked towards the door. A quick glance through the peephole and finding nothing, she pulled open the door, ready to yell at the kids down the hall for bothering her again.
"I swear to god if you guys bother me again I'll fu—"
"Hi."
Emma looked down at the small boy in surprise. "Hi. Who are—"
"Did you give a little boy up for adoption ten years ago?" He asked as he placed a firm palm against her partially open door. "Because I'm that boy. I'm your son. I'm Henry."
Emma's jaw fell slack as he pushed his way past her into her barren apartment. He immediately went for the fridge and Emma felt nauseous and quickly made her way into the bathroom. Breathing heavily, she braced her hands against the edge of the sink and avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror. If it was true and this boy was her son, the first thought in her mind was how the hell did he find her before she found him first? Finding people was her thing but as it appeared, the apple didn't fall too far from the tree after all.
"Do you have any juice?" Henry called out and she inhaled sharply, moving to the closed door and placed her palms against it. "Never mind," he called out as she opened the door. "I found some."
"There is a glass you can use."
"I'm good," he grinned before taking the carton of orange juice directly to his lips for a second time, gulping until he nearly coughed from drinking too much too fast. "So, this is your place?"
"Yeah, it's home."
"No, it's not."
"It's not?" Emma asked in confusion. "Listen, kid. I've lived here for five years. It's home."
Henry looked around with an eyebrow quirked and he took another swig of juice before slamming the carton down on the counter. "Is it? Looks like you just moved in."
"Well I didn't and what the hell are you doing in Boston so late, kid? Where are your parents?"
"My mom is at home. She doesn't know I'm here."
"Then I'm taking you home, kid."
"Please don't!"
"Your mother is going to worry."
"No she's not!"
Emma ran her hands through her hair, her fingers pulling at the spots she's meticulously hair sprayed into place hours before. "Your mother is going to be worried sick, kid. Where do you live?"
"Storybrooke."
"Where?"
"In Maine."
Emma groaned quietly. Maine. It was a few hours drive at least and she had no ide where Storybrooke was. She'd never even heard of it. Not to mention the fact that she was still reeling over the fact that this kid was claiming to be her son, her son, and after all that time she'd tried to find him, he'd found her first. She ran her fingers through her hair and stared down at him, watching him as he drank straight from the carton again before she grabbed a clean glass from the drying rack next to the sink.
"Here, use a glass like a civilized person, kid, and I'm going to figure out what we're going to do. I should probably call the cops."
"And tell them what? That some kid showed up claiming to be your son?"
Emma knew that no matter if she told the truth or not, they'd believe the kid and whatever tale he spun. If Henry really was her son, it'd look like she'd kidnapped him. At best. Running her fingers through her hair once more, she poured him a glass of juice and placed the carton into the nearly empty fridge. She had a choice to make and she knew, no matter what she truly wanted, that she had to take him home to his mother.
They were in the Bug and on the road nearly half an hour and a change of clothes later. Henry was sitting in the passenger seat with a deep frown on his face and his arms crossed over his chest in a way that reminded Emma so much of herself when she was young. She had caught herself one too many times in the middle of making comparisons when she knew that was the last thing she needed to be doing. Whether he was her son or not, he wasn't hers and she was doing the right thing in bringing him home to his mother where he belonged.
They didn't speak much and the drive would be long, nearly four hours from downtown Boston to the town of Storybrooke, Maine. Emma had her doubts about the kid and she had every reason to since she'd been looking for him for years and never once found a lead. How he'd found her first had her looking for answers she wasn't going to find unless she asked him.
"Can we stop for food?"
"This isn't a road trip, kid. I'm taking you home."
"Whatever," Henry muttered. "I'm still hungry."
"You're going to have to wait until you get home," Emma replied, not taking her eyes off the road as the Bug rolled down the interstate. "What the hell are you doing coming all the way to Boston at night anyway, kid?"
"My name isn't "kid", it's Henry."
"Doesn't answer my question."
"I was looking for you. I wanted to find my real mom."
"You already have a mother, kid, and I ain't it."
"I hate her," he muttered and Emma glanced over at him before turning her eyes back to the road.
"What'd she do, ground you or something?"
"No."
"She had to have done something to make you think you hate her."
"I don't think I hate her," Henry said stubbornly. "I know I hate her."
"Kid, that's your mother you're talking about."
"She's not my mom, you are."
Emma sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. He was sure her kid all right, just as stubborn as she knew she could be at times. When she spotted a sign signaling a rest stop was up ahead, she pulled into the exit lane and got off of the interstate. Despite already telling Henry she wasn't going to stop for food, her own stomach was conspiring against her and the Bug needed gas since she had no idea how far or how long it'd take to drive to a town she'd never heard of before.
Henry continued to scowl in the passenger seat as she pulled into the gas station and came to a stop in front of one of the pumps. She turned to him, almost telling him to sit tight, but clamped her mouth shut before she shut off the engine and slipped out quickly. Once she had the gas going, she pulled out her slim wallet from the back pocket of her jeans and pulled out a twenty.
"Hey, kid?" Emma said as she leaned into the open window and handed him the bill. "Go get us some snacks, okay? Whatever you want."
"Whatever I want?"
"Sure, go wild," she said with a smile that surprisingly wasn't forced and just before he opened the door, she cleared her throat. "If they have any bear claws—"
"Get you two?"
Emma laughed with a shake of her head. "Yeah, kid. Get me two."
"Okay!"
She watched him as he ran into the gas bar and she turned her attention back to the pump, watching as the numbers steadily rose higher. Her night had definitely not turned out as she'd thought it would, but then again her birthdays were usually spent alone and in the past handful of years, she'd been working. Always working, always finding ways to keep from dwelling on the fact that another birthday was spent alone yet again.
By the time she finished filling up the tank, Henry still hadn't come out of the gas bar and she sighed in annoyance as she crossed the lot and walked inside and found him standing at the counter while the man behind it rang up his purchases that well exceeded the twenty she'd given him. With a roll of her eyes, she strolled up to the cash and pulled out her wallet, sliding out her credit card she very rarely used and handed it to the clerk.
"I'm at pump three. Put it all on the card," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand and she glanced down at Henry with a raised eyebrow. She was about to question his purchases when she saw the half dozen box of bear claws and clamped her mouth shut.
"That everything?"
Emma glanced at the stash of candy, chips, and soda on the counter and nodded. The sooner she got this road trip over with, the better. What was the harm in letting the kid load up on junk food and stuff himself silly beyond belief? She'd done it many times herself before, no harm, no foul. She just nodded with a grimace as he swiped her card and told her the total.
Twenty minutes and one long bathroom break later, complete with Henry exiting it twice to complain about how dirty it was, they were back on the road with the radio as loud as they both could stand. The GPS on her phone couldn't locate Storybrooke and she was going on instructions from a ten-year-old boy, driving along the interstate at eleven at night with no idea where exactly she'd end up or what she'd do once she dropped him off at home.
After they'd been back on the road for almost two hours, Emma could feel the fatigue settling in and she blinked and gripped at the wheel, trying to keep her eyes wide open and her senses alert, but the road she was on, a narrow winding road Henry told her to take, it was dark and not a single other car had passed them since she turned on to the road. She turned to Henry, who was now fast asleep in the passenger seat with his head resting against the window and she sighed, choosing not to wake him despite her fears that they'd taken a wrong turn somewhere.
She sighed and continued to drive down the winding road and after making the next wide curve, that's when she saw it, the sign just up ahead and as she got closer, she read the words in white lettering, "Welcome to Storybrooke" and she sighed in relief.
"Hey," she said softly and she cleared her throat as she nudged Henry's shoulder until his eyes fluttered open sleepily. "Hey, kid? You're home."
"Oh."
"You want to tell me where you live? Your mom is probably—"
"I don't want to go home!" Henry said, now fully awake and angry. "Please don't make me go home, Emma!"
"Jesus, kid, I'm taking you home and that's it. If you don't tell me where you live, I'm sure I can find someone that'll tell me," Emma said and she turned onto Main Street and came to a stop at the red light. "So, which way is home?"
Henry groaned and pointed left. "That way."
Emma waited for the light to turn green before she made the turn. A few blocks later, Henry told her to stop in front of what she knew was the biggest house on the entire street. It was quaint yet intimidating all at once and as she put the Bug in park, she motioned for Henry to get out of the car first before she slipped out and slammed the door shut. Her attention was pulled away by the sound of a woman crying out Henry's name and as she walked around the Bug to the sidewalk to stand behind him, she caught sight of Henry's mother running down the front walkway towards the gate.
"Henry!"
"Is that her?" Emma asked quietly and he nodded, a frown forming on his face as he turned to look up at her. "Go on."
"Henry, where have you been? I've been worried sick about you!"
"I'm fine, Mom," Henry said as he ducked away from her outstretched arms. "I went to find my real mom and I found her!"
"You're Henry's birth mother?"
Emma shrugged slightly. "Hi."
The other woman was clearly distraught over her son having run away from home and to find his birth mother nonetheless, but Emma just stared at her and found something strangely familiar about her. It was a sense of familiarity she couldn't quite put her finger on because as far as she was concerned, she'd never met the woman before.
And unknown to both women was the fact that they did know each other, once upon a time…
