"What is this place?" Snow asked. She had been quiet for most of the car ride, looking out the window in wonder at all she was seeing.

"It's called Storybrooke," Regina answered. "This is a town in a world that is different than the one we came from."

"I want my father. Where is he?"

Snow didn't pay attention to Regina gripping the steering wheel tighter at that question. When Regina didn't answer Snow asked a series of other questions, all of which were ignored by Regina, she finally fell silent by the time they were pulling into the mansion's driveway.

Regina got out and was opening the passenger side door when Emma pulled up behind her. She had to bend over and unlatch the seatbelt for Snow and then told her to get out.

But Regina didn't move toward the mansion, she went to Emma instead.

"Henry is inside. Perhaps you should go in there and explain what is happening," Regina suggested.

"Oh, yeah, right. How do we handle him with her, I mean explaining who he is?"

"We don't," Regina emphasized. "As much as I hate to say this, it may be best if you tell Henry to keep his relationship with me a secret for now. He is your son. As an attendant it wouldn't be entirely out of the question that your child would also be part of the household staff. It's probably the best way to play it for now."

"Are you kidding me? First of all, this whole attendant thing has got to go. I'm not going to play your servant until we figure this out. Secondly, she understands this isn't the Enchanted Forest anymore so I think we can drop some of these old world ways. You can't expect that we can keep the fact Henry is your child when there are photos of him all over the place in there."

"Well you better hurry up and take those photos down then," Regina said. "I don't like this anymore than you do, but your mother is a little girl right now who has no idea what is happening around her so doing this in a manner that will be easy for her would I think be something you and your father would want. As for you being an attendant, outside of the royal family, which Snow has no idea you are a part of, only an attendant would be around us that much. So I will stay out here with her while you take care of things inside."

Emma glanced over at Snow for a moment before heading toward the house and going inside.

Snow approached Regina who was getting the magic books out of the car.

"Why are we here?" she asked.

"This is where I live in this world," Regina answered.

Snow looked at the mansion once more. "This is a castle?"

"Yes."

"I live here too?"

"You are staying here for now."

Snow started to ask yet another question but she saw Regina was not paying attention as she had one of the books open. Instead she walked toward the house. Looking back and seeing Regina was still absorbed in the book so she stepped up closer to the door.

"Don't even think about it," Regina said loudly as Snow reached for the doorknob, causing Snow to bring her hand back to her side quickly. "Come back over here."

"But I'm bored."

Regina sighed. "The attendant is preparing things inside for us; until such time we will wait here. If you are going to be queen you need to learn to be patient," she said with a sense of déjà vu.

She went back to reading the book.

Snow came over and stood next to Regina, mirroring her stance. It lasted less than a minute before Snow began tapping her foot, which got Regina's attention.

"When we get inside, we'll find a book or something for you to read."

"What's that book?" Snow asked.

"It's a book for adults."

"I'm hungry."

"We'll get you something to eat when we get in there."

"Is cook in there?"

"No, cook is not in there."

"Where is she?"

Regina stopped before speaking as she tried to remember where the woman was who had been the main cook at the castle. It took her a moment but she remembered the woman whose name had been Kimberly or Karen now worked as the cook at the high school.

"She lives across town I think, works as a cook at a school."

"Then who is going to cook our food?"

"I will."

"But you're queen. Queens don't cook their own food. That is servant work. Make Emma do it."

"I shudder to think what Miss Swan would come up with for us to eat. I'm more than capable of handling it," Regina said.

Another car pulled up and Regina moved off Emma's car, leaving the books on the top of it, and walked toward Charming who was approaching them with his sword strapped to his waist.

"Where's Emma?"

"Inside, handling …things." Regina said seeing that Snow had followed her and was once again standing next to her. She hoped that Charming would understand she didn't want to say specifically due to Snow's presence. He merely nodded and Snow took the opportunity to walk around him, studying him.

"Scott is bigger," Snow announced suddenly. "But I suppose he will do."

"Who is Scott?" Charming asked.

"Our former captain of the guard," Snow answered before Regina could. "He was bigger than you, more muscles."

Charming gave Regina a look as if to ask if Snow was being serious.

"She's right," Regina shrugged. "His sword was bigger too."

She went back to the car and grabbed the book she had been flipping through. This whole situation had gone past its expiration date in her mind. She needed to find a way to return Snow to her adult self. She never thought she would be wishing for adult Snow to be around.

It was another several minutes before Emma came back out with Henry, who was wide-eyed at the young version of his grandmother. Emma introducing Henry to Snow as her son made Regina regret the charade they were putting on, but explaining that Henry was also her son would have made things 10 times worse.

The fact that Snow White was so cheerful and everyone's friend was not a reputation the girl always had as Regina remembered. There weren't a lot of other kids around court –well not entirely true, there were other kids, but they didn't seem to want much to do with the princess. Regina had actually smiled once when she overheard two of the handmaidens' children calling the princess a "brat." The children thought they would be in trouble when Regina came around the corner right after they said it, but instead Regina had cook give them some of her favorite sweet bread.

They all went inside and Snow immediately began walking around studying everything. While it hadn't changed that much, Regina did feel a bit of sorrow at seeing empty spaces where photos of Henry were once on display.

The ringing of a phone startled the young girl who was looking around wildly for the source of it.

"Sorry," Emma said, trying to discreetly pull her phone out of her pocket and answer it while leaving the room.

"What was that?" Snow asked, and everyone's eyes turned to Regina.

"It's called a phone," Regina said. "In this world it is way for people to talk when they are far away from each other."

Emma came back in quick enough and motioned for Regina, who stepped closer to her.

"Got called out to an accident on River Road," she said. "I got to go. My dad can stay here. I will be back as quick as I can."

"Go," Regina said. "If we need the sheriff it's going to be because I have killed your mom if she keeps asking questions."

"Not funny."

"Wasn't meant to be."

"Come on Regina, it can't be that bad," Emma said. "It's a strange place to her so of course she's going to be curious. Didn't Henry ask a lot of questions at that age?"

"At that age, he was stealing my credit card to go find his birth mother," she said crossing her arms in front of her. "Now I wonder where the idea of theft came into his gene pool."

"Then she is about 10, I couldn't tell," Emma said. "So this isn't long into your um … you know."

"My forced marriage?" Regina offered up. "No not too long into it would be my guess, a year, maybe less."

Emma was about to ask another question but then realized she was supposed to be leaving. She told Henry and her father she would be right back but she needed to go take care of some business for the queen. She saw Henry stifle a laugh.

"Henry and David, why don't you stay here with the princess while I go to the kitchen and see about dinner?" Regina said.

"I'll go with you," Snow said.

"Fine."

She led the way to the kitchen which involved more questions about what things were such as the refrigerator and how it worked. It wasn't even 10 minutes before Regina was asking Henry to go fetch her some aspirin.

Deciding to keep things simple she ended up making rigatoni. Snow kept by her side almost the entire time – leaving it only to help Henry get ingredients. Fascinated by Regina cooking she mostly kept quiet as she watched Regina work.

When the food was ready, Regina put some rigatoni, garlic bread and vegetables on a plate for Snow and put in on the table for her. Snow waited, watching Regina as she made up a plate for Henry who began to sit down at the table once he had his food in hand.

"Servants don't sit at the table with the royal family," Snow pronounced, stopping Henry in his tracks. He looked over at his mother as if to ask what to do.

"Sit Henry," Regina said. She then prepared a plate for David and ignored the look of disdain Snow was giving Henry for sitting down there with her. Once David had his food, Regina made a plate for Emma and set it aside and finally got her own and took a seat as far away from Snow as she could manage.

Snow kept quiet throughout the meal, in fact everyone did. When she finished eating Snow put the silverware on the plate and turned to Henry. "You can take that now, I'm finished."

Henry glanced again to Regina who merely nodded and he sighed as he got up and removed her plate, clearing it off, rinsing it and putting it in the dishwasher as he had been taught to by his mother. He then returned to his own plate and finished off his food.

Regina had barely touched her own food, keeping one of the books near her the entire time and concentrating on it more than eating.

"Regina."

She looked up to see Snow staring at her. "I'm tired."

"Follow me," she said standing up and walking out with Snow right behind on her. They went upstairs, and Regina directed her to the guest bedroom. "You can use this room."

Snow entered it, walking around in a circle to look at everything. "It's not very big."

Regina resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she knew back home Snow had an entire suite.

"Look things are different here as you can see," Regina said. "This place, it's not like home."

"I want to go home," Snow said, tears starting to form in her eyes again. "Why can't we go home?"

"I'm working on getting things back to normal."

Snow didn't respond but she looked over at the bed. "Will you tell me a story?"

"No."

"Where is your bedroom?"

"At the end of the hall."

Snow again looked at the bed. "Are my clothes here?"

"Wait here," Regina said. She left quickly thinking that if this last much longer she would have to get clothes for her. But for now she went to her own room, pulled out a piece of her own clothing and used her magic to turn into something appropriate for Snow to wear.

"How did you do that?"

She turned to see Snow standing in her doorway with an expression of wonder and yes, a little fear.

"I told you to stay in the room."

"How did you do that?" Snow asked.

"Magic," Regina answered reluctantly, unsure of how this would go. She had so far avoided using magic in front of Snow for just this reason.

"But father says magic users are all evil," Snow said, backing up a step.

Regina too had heard Leopold's dissertation on magic. Thinking about it now made her want show his daughter exactly what a magic user could do.

"Queen Regina," Henry called up from downstairs. "Emma is back."

Regina walked to the door forcing the piece of clothing into Snow's hands. "Go to bed." She went downstairs where Emma was already eating her food.

"So you plan on keeping Snow here?" David asked.

"What else would you suggest? Do you want to take her home where her options to sleep are the couch or the bed you lay in with your wife? Not to mention the fact, how are you going to explain to her about Neal?"

"Where is my brother anyway?" Emma asked.

"Belle was watching him when your mother and I came looking for you and when I came to pick up my sword I called her and asked if she wouldn't mind watching him a little longer this evening. Still I have to go pick him up."

"I think Regina's right. Snow isn't going to go home with you anyway. She clearly doesn't want to be far away from Regina," Emma said. "Why is that by the way? Was she like this before? I mean I sort of had the impression that …"

"That what? That I was always the Evil Queen?"

"No I didn't mean it like that. I just …"

"Look, she's fine upstairs for now. I will stay up all night if I have to in order to figure out what that was in the vial and how to reverse it," Regina said. "For now, why don't you go pick up your son David and go home."

"That's my wife up there, if you think I'm going to leave her unattended you are wrong."

Regina had her hands on her hips and looked up at the ceiling. "Fine, do whatever you wish," she said finally. "Why should my opinion matter? Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to lock myself away in my office and do something constructive like trying to figure this out."

She stormed out without another word.

"Maybe you should go pick up Neal," Emma said after Regina left.

"I'm not leaving your mom here with her."

"Regina's not going to do anything to her," Emma said. "She's not the same person she once was. Besides I'm here so mom isn't alone.

"Mom wouldn't hurt her," Henry said.

David looked down at his grandson and then to his daughter. "You're right. I know she wouldn't hurt her. It's just there is a lot of history there and sometimes it's not so easy to forget."

"It's not easy for her to forget either," Emma said.

David was about to open his mouth to say that is what he was afraid of but he got the feeling that wasn't exactly what Emma meant. "I will go pick up your brother and head home. Call me if anything happens that I need to know about, otherwise I will be back in the morning to see if Regina has made any progress in reversing this."

"Thank you," Emma said.

Emma waited a little while and then knocked on the door to Regina's home office before entering. Regina had her head down reading a book at her desk.

"My dad went to pick up Neal and go home for the night. He'll check back in the morning. In the meantime can I help?" Emma asked.

"No," Regina said not looking up. "You're not far enough along in your magic training for these books."

"I wish I was so I could help."

Regina looked up at her this time. "Maybe it would be a good idea if we stopped with the lessons anyway. You know enough to handle yourself in a fight."

"What? Is this because I broke that vial? I swear I can keep my hands to myself. If anything this has brought that message home loud and clear."

"No, it's not that. If we were back home, if none of this had ever happened, you would be a princess and doing magic, well that wouldn't have been encouraged. Clearly your parents have particular feelings about magic so perhaps it's best if we end this now."

Emma couldn't believe Regina was saying this. Regina had encouraged her to learn more about her magic. She had called Emma special because of her magic.

"We can't pretend that none of this happened. We are here, we aren't in the Enchanted Forest," Emma said. "I'm not a princess, and even if I was I make my own decisions about my life. I want to learn."

"We can discuss it further later," Regina said. "For now I need to concentrate on this. If you are here to guard your mother from the Evil Queen while your father is gone, perhaps you can better do so closer to her."

"Regina…"

"Miss Swan, I need to concentrate."

She put her head back down and Emma reluctantly left the room. She went back out to the main room and ended up watching a movie with Henry until it was time for him to go to bed.

"I guess it's couch city for me," Emma said.

"I can show you where mom keeps the spare blankets," Henry said. They walked upstairs and Henry showed her the linen closet. She thanked him and then grabbed a sheet and blanket. She was stopped outside of the guest room where she presumed Snow was sleeping. Nudging the door open she decided to check on her.

Snow was curled up on the bed, hugging what appeared to be a nightgown of some sort and sniffling. Emma approached her, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Are you ok?" Emma asked.

"I want to go home."

"I know you do," Emma said. "Regina, the queen, she's working on it. I know this is all strange to you but I promise you are safe here. Is that why you are crying because you're scared?"

"Father is going to be angry at her."

Emma cocked her head a little at this. "You mean at Regina."

Snow nodded.

"Why would he be angry at her?"

"She did magic. She made this from magic," she said indicating the nightgown.

"Ok," Emma said, unsure why this was a reason to be upset. It made her think of something else though. "Does your father often get angry at the queen?"

Snow shrugged.

Emma was unsure if that meant that Snow didn't know or if perhaps Snow didn't understand exactly what Emma meant by asking. Outside of Henry when he showed up at her door she didn't have a lot of experience talking to 10 year olds.

"You should change clothes and try and get some sleep," Emma said.

"But she made this with magic."

"Yeah, she probably did it because she didn't have clothes around here for you to wear," Emma said, still not seeing the big deal. Then she thought about what Regina had just said to her downstairs. "Do you not like magic?"

"Father says only bad people use magic. He says they use it to harm other people."

"Is that what you think, that Regina is going to harm you?"

"No," Snow said quickly. "She's like my mom, but she won't let me call her that."

The idea that Snow would ever consider Regina as a mom, much less ever attempt to call her that was unfathomable to Emma. The way this Snow was being toward Regina it didn't make any sense with the stories she had heard. "If you don't think she is going to harm you then there is no harm in putting on those clothes. Come on, you need to get to bed."

Snow got off the bed and Emma suddenly found herself in the position of attendant once more as she had Emma hold the nightgown while she took her other clothes off and then put it on. She looked down at the discarded clothes and Emma took the hint as she bent down and picked them up. The phrase high maintenance came to mind.

"Can I get you a glass of water or anything before you sleep?"

"No, that will be all," Snow said dismissively and Emma withdrew from the room hoping that things would be normal again in the morning.

….

Emma had managed to fall asleep on the couch, but she woke in the middle of the night from a sound. Grabbing her phone, she saw it was after 3 a.m. and the noise was definitely coming from the kitchen.

Getting up she headed that way, wondering if Snow had changed her mind about the water. When she opened the door she saw it was Regina filling a mug of coffee.

"What are you still doing up?" Emma asked seeing that Regina hadn't even changed clothes so most likely hadn't gone to bed.

"I'm still researching."

"Found anything useful."

"Not really."
"Then go to bed."

"I haven't gotten through all the books."

"I don't care," Emma said, approaching her. She took the mug out of Regina's hand and dumped the contents down the sink. "Go to bed. You can do more searching in the morning."

Regina hesitated as if she wanted to say something in return.

"Go to bed," Emma repeated. "Come on." She led the way out of the room. "You, up there, me, I will return to the couch. Good night Regina."

"Good night Mis … Emma."

Without another word Regina retreated to the upstairs while Emma dumped herself back on the couch.

Regina paused outside of the guest bedroom when she got up there, her hand hovering over the door knob. She clinched her hand though and walked to her bedroom. Turning on the light after shutting the door, she paused – there was Snow White asleep on her bed.

Being as quiet as she could she retrieved some pajamas from the dresser and went into the bathroom to change. Once done, she slipped into her side of the bed, being careful not to touch the sleeping child. Even though it was dark she could still make out some of her features.

She wasn't overly shocked to find Snow here. When she had first been forced to marry Leopold it had not been unusual for the young girl to wake and seek her out. Snow would hop up on her bed and ask her to tell a story, or read some book or just braid her hair. In the beginning Snow seemed to be constantly at her side – seeking a fill in mom for the one she lost.

Thankfully, Regina was allowed to have her own private rooms within the royal suite so she had an alternate bed to sleep in on those nights the king didn't insist upon her presence in his bed.

Try as she might she couldn't block those dark memories from her mind, especially not now when the young Snow was practically forcing her to remember. She briefly considered going to the guest room and sleeping there, but finally turned away from the child and stared at the ceiling until sleep finally sought her out.