After their conversation, Regina had followed Emma willingly to the jail cell at the Sherriff's office. David was on duty and sat in the office as a guard while Emma went back to the loft to check up on Mary Margeret and Henry. Leopold was there.
Emma was uncomfortable with the situation. She hadn't known what Regina was talking about when she had threatened Emma earlier that day, and she had an inkling that maybe Regina just didn't want Leopold to poison Henry against her, not that Regina hadn't done enough of that herself. But still, she felt uneasy. She shifted on her toes until Mary Margeret left for the kitchen, and Emma followed her so she could talk to her about it out of earshot from Leopold and Henry.
"Hey, Mary Margeret," Emma said to get her attention as Mary Margeret began gleefully scrubbing away at the dishes in the sink. Emma would hate to be the one to break Mary Margeret's world of perfect peace that existed since the curse was broken.
"You can call me 'mom' if you want, you know," Mary Margeret chirped, looking back at Emma to smile.
Emma tried to smile back and looked away from her mother's eyes. "I know," Emma said, "That might take me a while."
With the context of the situation, Emma appreciated that Mary Margeret tried her best not to seem disappointed. Emma knew that Mary Margeret would be patient.
"Well, there's something I need to talk to you about. I had an alarming conversation with Regina earlier about... Well, about your dad."
Mary Margeret's eyes clouded over and she returned her focus to the dishes as she began to scrub more intensely.
"You can't believe anything she says about him, Emma," Mary Margeret stated.
Emma glanced over to where Henry and Leopold were sitting on the couch, talking enthusiastically. Henry had been ecstatic to meet his grandfather and pester him with as many questions as he could about what life had been like back in the Enchanted Forest.
Emma frowned. "I know that. I don't trust her. But something about what she said rubbed me the wrong way. And I..."
Emma trailed off, thinking of which details to leave out of her next sentence and which ones to keep. "When I was in foster care, I met a lot of people who were very good at hiding their dark side... And waited for an opportunity-"
Mary Margeret dropped the dish that was in her hand and it clattered in the sink. She spun back around to face Emma and Emma stepped back.
"I'm not saying he's like that! I'm not, I'm just..."
Emma trailed off again to look back at Henry. "I'm uncomfortable with them spending any time alone until I know your dad better. Can you just keep a close eye on them when I'm not here? I'm sorry."
Mary Margeret hesitated. Her eyes, ever close to tears since Emma had met her, had begun to water. Emma could tell that there was a lot Mary Margeret wanted to say. She could tell that she wanted to defend her father, to say that he had never hurt her, to say that Emma was being ridiculous. She could tell that Mary Margeret wanted to be hurt and angry. But when she opened her mouth to speak, all that came out was, "Okay."
"Thanks," Emma said, "I think Regina was wrong to say what she did. But I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Okay?"
Mary Margeret nodded and hesitated again, with something clearly on her mind.
Emma waited for Mary Margeret to think through her next words as they stood in silence. For a moment, Mary Margeret seemed to change her mind about speaking and halfway turned around to refocus on the dishes. But at the last minute, she whipped back around to face her daughter.
"I'm sorry, Emma. About the fostercare-"
Emma quickly interrupted, "It's fine. It's not your fault. And I don't like to talk about it," she said before Mary Margeret could ask any well-intentioned questions about the situation.
The pool in Mary Margeret's eyes began to overflow and a few stray tears slid down her cheeks. Mary Margeret shrugged. "It's Regina's fault," she said quietly. Emma said nothing in reply and Mary Margeret turned around toward the dishes once more, ending the conversation.
. . .
Emma quickly found out that Leopold wasn't the only individual randomly back from the dead. A half-zombie-looking blind woman calling herself "the Wicked Witch of the Forest," had stumbled out of the forest, and immediately the phones of the Sherriff's office were being flooded with calls from shocked and concerned citizens. And then, there were calls about Kurt Flynn, a man that had been killed years ago when passing through the town. As Emma walked into Granny's to pick up lunch for herself, her father, and Regina, she noticed family's gathering at the tables full of members she had never seen before.
The first thing she thought about was Graham. Would he be back now? Was there a chance that part of his soul was released from the curse and he would be waltzing back into Emma's life? She wanted to hope so, but it was too painful for her to think about. She had to push away thoughts of the fact that the woman she was purchasing a meal for was the woman that had caused her friend's death.
On her way out of Granny's, Dr. Whale stopped her at the door. "With all of these people that Regina murdered coming back from the dead, they will enact their vengeance. You can't keep her in hiding for long."
Emma was taken aback and wasn't sure how to reply. "If something happens to her, Whale, you'll be the first suspect on my list," she said and pushed past him to leave through the door.
Whale grabbed her arm, rough against the sensitive skin that Regina had bruised earlier.
"You should tell her..." Whale paused to smirk dubiously, "You should tell her about the stable boy. I think I saw him when I drove past the barn on the way here." Emma ignored him, pulling her arm away and walking swiftly out of the restaurant.
She didn't know what he was talking about. She didn't know anything about a stable boy, and Regina had never mentioned anything about it. But the look on Whale's face when he said it made her think he had malicious intentions in passing this information along to Regina.
"Grilled cheese," Emma announced as the door to the Sherriff's office swung open. "One for you," she said to her father as she sat the brown paper bag of food on hid desk, "And one for you," she said, passing a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich to Regina through the bars.
Regina's face contorted in disgust.
"Be grateful," Emma said to her, "I thought about getting you the tuna special they have today."
Regina looked like she was holding back a gag at that thought. Emma smirked and opened her own wrapped grilled cheese before beginning to devour it. She hadn't eaten anything all day. With all the excitement going around about the curse being broken, the idea of meals had slipped her mind.
Emma sat down in a rolling chair and wheeled it over to Regina's cell so that they could sit across from each other.
"I need to ask you some questions," Emma stated, crumpling her tin-foil wrap and shooting it toward the waste bin that was across the room. She missed the shot, and it bounced off the wall and landed on the floor next to the door. Emma decided she'd pick it up later.
"She won't talk," David said mid-bite, "I've already tried."
Regina sat her untouched sandwich down on the cot inside the jail cell and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I don't know anything that you all don't," she said resolutely.
"You're telling me you don't know anything about all the dead people coming back to life that just happened to start right after your curse broke?"
Regina feigned a look of surprise. "There's more?"
Emma sat silently before finishing the last bite of her grilled cheese. She looked over at David, who shrugged.
Emma turned back to meet Regina's eyes, which seemed to have a forcefield in front of them. Emma couldn't read her.
"Whale said something really weird to me today," Emma mentioned, "About a stable boy he saw today? At the barn?"
The color in Regina's face instantly drained, and Emma heard David choke on his food.
"Daniel?" Regina asked meekly.
Regina had the same look on her face that she'd had when Emma found her crumpled in her room that morning. Emma was shocked, again. After the past year of only experiencing Regina's wrath, she hadn't gotten used to these new feeble and pitiable facial expressions. She could tell that Regina had been taken off-guard.
"I don't know," Emma said truthfully, "I didn't know what he was talking about. I-"
"Emma," David said, interrupting her. Emma looked back to see him motioning for her to step away from Regina and talk to him out of earshot.
She followed him, even though Regina asked her to wait and explain herself. She told Regina that she'd be back in a second, and left to talk to David.
"Are you sure he didn't just tell you that to be cruel?" David whispered. Emma had never seen David sympathize with Regina before, and she definitely hadn't been expecting him to now, when everyone in town hated her even more than they had before.
"I don't know," Emma said, "Who was he talking about?"
David looked away from her and up at the ceiling, considering his next words. He ran his fingers across the scruff of his facial hair like he always did when he was deep in thought.
"Her fiance," he said finally, "She always blamed Snow for his death. But it happened when Snow was just a kid, she couldn't have known, or..." his voice trailed off and Emma nodded. Bits and pieces of stories that Henry had told her when she hadn't really been paying attention flooded back into her mind.
"Her fiance," she echoed. Daniel, she thought.
She began to walk back over to Regina, who had recovered from her shock. She stood with her arms crossed again and her expressions guarded. "If he's alive I need to see him," Regina stated sincerely, "I need to know Daniel's really here."
For half a second, a smile showed on Regina's lips at the mention of Daniel's name.
Emma breathed out a deep sigh and plopped back down onto her rolly chair.
"Okay," Emma said, "I can find him. But I need you to cooperate when you're questioned. Especially if you want to get out of this jail cell alive. People are protesting in the streets for the right to kill you. It's almost anarchy, out there."
Regina nodded. "I don't know why people are coming back, Mrs. Swan. Really. It wasn't a part of the curse. I thought... Maybe it was only the people that I killed, coming back. But if it really is Daniel..."
"Storybrooke is about to be severely overpopulated," Emma commented grimly.