a/n: Quick thank you to the people who reviewed anonymously. I couldn't PM you a thank you so I'm doing it now!


2: Jenny Swan

When Jennifer asked why Miss Blanchard looked at her so oddly, she said that they didn't get strangers in Storybrooke very often. Jennifer suspected something else, though. She didn't quite know what~but something. Either way, she kept quiet. No use making a fuss if there was none. Dr. TV had disappeared for now, but Miss Blanchard, who she'd insisted Jennifer call Mary Margaret, decided to stay.

Really she just wanted to get some rest so she could be out of here as soon as possible. "Thank you for taking me to the hospital, but you don't have to stay. I'm fine." She insisted for the third time. And she really was feeling better. Not completely okay, but okay enough for her to leave. Mary Margaret just chuckled, the pagers and footsteps of the hospital floating softly in the background.

"You know, you sound exactly like my...like a friend of mine." She smiled in amusement then paused. "I just want to make sure you're alright. You do realize that you have a concussion, right?"

"Yeah, I know, but I'm fine. Really." She insisted as there was a knock at the door. A blonde in a red leather jacket strode in, a gun and badge displayed unabashedly on her hip. The two women paid absolutely no attention to each other, but when their gazes met, Jennifer's jaw dropped. Immediately~immediately~she recognized her. And she could have sworn that her heart stopped and her fingers went numb. All she heard was the sound of her own voice echoing in her head. "Oh, my God."

"Jenny." Emma stated in utter disbelief. Though her voice was soft, the sound was deafening in the pin drop silence. She looked shocked and dumbfounded and completely speechless with wide eyes and parted lips. Jennifer blinked and closed her mouth and gave a little shake of her head.

"Jennifer." She told Emma dumbly, for lack of anything remotely coherent to put forth instead.

"What?"

"It's Jennifer now. No one's called me Jenny in years." Her voice kept echoing in the silence, and no one noticed the way Mary Margaret kept looking between the two of them with increasing interest.

"What a coincidence. You two know each other?"

Without breaking eye contact, Emma answered. "Jenny's my sister."

Mary Margaret's mouth gaped open as her head moved from Emma to Jennifer then back again. She choked on her words, blinking rapidly. "Sister?" The word was loud and surprised and confused. Then, quickly, she took a breath to calm herself. "I mean, um, Emma you never told me that you have a sister." Her voice was saccharinely polite but sternly pointed.

Emma opened and closed her mouth, looking briefly at Mary Margaret then quickly back at Jennifer who was now blushing profusely. "Well, not biologically or, well, legally. It was just a promise we made in foster care." Jennifer laughed, breathy and hesitant, with an awkward shake of her head.

"Just a promise?" Emma protested, blinking and frowning. Jennifer had meant a lot to Emma. She'd been her shoulder to lean on in foster care. Would Jenny really be so quick as to dismiss that?

"Well it. didn't last, did it?" Jennifer reminded her rather pointedly, placing blame.

"Jenny." Emma pleaded.

"It's Jennifer." She corrected, this time sternly. Emma's heart dropped down to her toes. She'd needed a court order to get into foster records, so Emma never knew what happened to Jenny. Though god knows she tried, she didn't think she'd ever see her again.

Mary Margaret, sensing a break in the conversation, stepped forward. "Emma, can I talk to you for a minute?" She practically pulled the blonde out of the room with her. Once they were safely down the hallway, Mary Margaret finally burst. "Sister?"

Emma sighed. "I really don't want to talk about this right now." Mary Margaret searched Emma's pleading, hiding eyes~hating that she could conceal her feelings so well. With a shake of her head, she pushed down a whirlwind of emotions and took a deep breath.

"Okay. Okay." Mary Margaret nodded with a sigh, pressing her hands to her hips. There was a brief moment of silence, but Mary Margaret just couldn't contain herself anymore. "Sister?" Emma groaned. "Emma, honey, I'm your mother. I'm allowed to be curious."

"Look, she was ten when her parents died." Mary Margaret's brow furrowed sympathetically. She'd been around the same age when she'd lost her parents so she could understand what that kind of loss felt like: the helplessness and the guilt, the feeling like the world was crashing down around her. "The first foster home she was placed in happened to be with me; that's how we met. She needed someone, and we just happened to share a last name." Emma took a breath. "Jenny was my sister."

"And now?"

"Now…" Emma sighed. "I don't know."

"Well, it seemed tense in there is everything...okay?" Mary Margaret prodded. Emma squirmed. She hadn't talked about Jenny for a decade. It didn't feel right, especially with her in the other room. Besides, she didn't particularly want to explain to her why they hadn't spoken in over a decade.

"Can we please not talk about this right now?"

"When is there a better time than right now?"

"Well it'd be nice to not be interrogated two seconds after Jenny shows up out of the blue, after 13 years, in a town that she's not even supposed to be able to enter."

"I'm not interrogating~"

"Mary Margaret!" She snapped her mouth shut at her daughter's outburst. This wasn't Emma.

. . .

When Mary Margaret and Emma came back into her room the tension between them was palpable. Mary Margaret said goodbye, Jennifer thanked her once more, and Emma stayed.

And then she sighed, stuffing her hands into her pockets. She was wearing these skin tight jeans and a red leather jacket and her hair was long and blonde and, my God, she hadn't changed one damn bit. This looked like Jenny's Emma.

"You're a police officer." Jennifer stated curiously. The fog of the concussion had lifted from her mind, but the headache was still there in full force.

"Sheriff." She corrected. Jennifer's gaze wandered to the badge and gun on her hip. Emma was carrying a gun.

It was an ironic kind of funny because Emma was no angel. She wasn't a citizen of the law by any means. Fuck the police~fuck authority~was her motto in not as many words. She was standoffish and cocky and had a real knack for pissing off the right people. She hated the way the foster system was rigged. She hated how it owned her, even the clothes on her back. So she stole. Shoplifting, mostly. Little stuff. Things she could hide away like a treasure. It was hers, and that was all that mattered.

"Sheriff." Jennifer echoed, nodding slowly. She wasn't going to admit it right now, but she was proud of Emma. There was an awkward moment of hesitant silence. Neither of them knew how to start. Finally, Emma stepped forward, biting the inside of her cheek.

"Jenny, you can't just dismiss our time in foster care." She said it quickly, almost hesitantly like she was treading on thin ice.

"I wasn't." Jennifer frowned as if asking why the hell she'd think that. "I was just trying to say that we stopped being sisters when you broke our promise and left me." Her voice was a lot harsher than Emma's, and it seemed to set her off because the next second her face had contorted into a caricature of disgust and resentment.

"We were kids. I was a kid."

Jennifer's heart dropped at the words; there was a growing sense of disappointment and anger welling in her chest as she raised her brow in shock. Her mouth opened and closed inexplicably, trying to find the words to express her horror.

"Is that supposed to be an excuse?" She shot back. Fuck, she might even have accepted an apology. After all, she didn't think she'd ever see Emma again, and she couldn't live with herself if she passed up an opportunity to fix what they had. But not now. Trying to play what she'd done off as a silly, vapid teenage fuck up was more than she could handle. It was her self esteem and her self worth and her heart that Emma had broken when she left, and it had been devastating. So if Emma didn't have the courage to accept that she'd made a mistake then Jennifer sure as hell wasn't going to forgive her.

"You left me, Emma." She cut harshly, an angry, pleading, deflated furrow in her brow. She could feel her heartbeat in the stitches on her forehead. "No warning, no goodbye. The middle of the night. You left. I was your family. You were mine. We were sixteen, for Christ's sake! Two more years. You couldn't survive two more years in the system with me? Eighteen and you could have done whatever the hell you wanted! Family doesn't abandon family, Emma. We talked about this!" When Jennifer finished she was red faced and angry and, dammit, starting to get teary eyed. It didn't make it any better that she was sitting vulnerable in a paper thin hospital gown and curly, tangled hair and a concussed head that was working against her. But she hadn't cried over Emma in years. She wasn't about to start now. "God, Emma. Thirteen fucking years and you couldn't just admit to making a mistake?"

She watched as Emma's contorted expression turned into panic. "You're bleeding!" Before Jennifer could say anything Emma turned around and went to grab a doctor. Jennifer could feel the warm, wetness of blood on her skin. She popped a stitch probably.

Damn her and damn Emma. After she left 13 years ago, Jennifer was a wreck. Feeling like a worthless, nobody foster kid on top of being abandoned by the one person she'd considered family was absolutely crushing. But that wasn't why she was mad anymore; that wasn't the point. The point was that it had happened, and Emma wasn't even willing to live up to it.

Quickly, Emma came running back in with Dr. Whale. "Looks like you popped a stitch!" He exclaimed, no doubt watching the widening red stain on the bandage across her forehead. She winced, the skin starting to burn.

"Is she gonna be okay?" Emma asked in concern, Jennifer hating her even more because of it. How could she care this much yet still be so oblivious to Jennifer's feelings? She just didn't understand. And, frankly, she didn't care to at this point.

"I'll be fine, but I'd like you to leave." She called as Whale removed the bandage. Emma closed her mouth, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Then she nodded curtly and turned to walk out. When she was gone Whale had this shitty little smirk on this thin little lips.

"Fight with Sheriff Swan? Doesn't surprise me. She can be pretty hot headed sometimes." Jennifer snorted at that. Still the same fucking Emma.

. . .

By the end of the day, Emma's cell phone was filled with the concerns of frantic citizens. Her office phone was ringing off the hook when Mary Margaret and David walked in. "It's all over town that there's an outsider in Storybrooke. We have to do something." Mary Margaret burst. Emma shook her head, dark circles under her eyes.

"I should have known it was a bad idea to have Leroy pick up Jenny's car." She muttered. David stepped forward, and she prayed he wouldn't bring up the sister thing. There was no doubt in her mind that Mary Margaret had told David everything. She just really didn't want to talk about it right now.

She didn't want to talk about how much she'd missed Jennifer and her curly, brown hair and uncountable freckles and smiling face with rosy red cheeks. She didn't want to talk about how many times she'd imagined her sister's devastation after finding out she'd up and left without telling her. She didn't want to talk about how different her life could have been.

"Mary Margaret said that she isn't a threat." David's voice snapped her back to the conversation.

"No, she's not. Once her car is fixed she'll be out of our hair. Trust me, she won't be in the same town as me any longer than absolutely necessary." Mary Margaret looked heartbroken at her blazé remark.

As far as Emma could see, Mary Margaret was overjoyed that Jennifer even existed. She'd always worried that her daughter had had no one for twenty eight years. At least now she knew that it wasn't true. However, it was clear that she was concerned for the both of them. A bond, however weathered, had been broken. And Mary Margaret was determined as ever to fix it.

"I think we should hold a town meeting tomorrow at the courthouse." David suggested. "Just to set the record straight. We don't want any angry mobs running around Storybrooke." Emma nodded.

"I'll set it up. I have a whole town's worth of phone calls to respond to anyway."

"And I'm going to check up on Jennifer." Mary Margaret announced. Emma sighed. Noticing her visible annoyance and exasperation, Mary Margaret frowned. "Someone has to! And if it isn't going to be her sister then it's going to be me."

"Why should I go? She doesn't even want to see me!" Emma exclaimed accusingly.

"If you tell me why you two are fighting then maybe I can help sort it out." Emma scoffed and ran a hand through her hair.

"It's not that simple. You can't just fix everything with a hug and a kiss, Mary Margaret. The real world is a little more complicated than a fairytale."

. . .

Turning off his car, Gold strode to the town line with narrowed eyes. He'd tracked the source of the magical disturbance to the protection spell. And that unnerved him because the protection spell happened to be the only thing keeping outsiders, well, out. If it failed then there would be nothing to stop any old Joe from wandering in or, God forbid, locating Storybrooke.

He stopped in front of the town line and waved his hand over the invisible barrier. It shimmered like a soap bubble in the sun, then faded. The spell should be hearty and tough, not delicate and flimsy. Perturbed, he assessed the damage. It hadn't been this bad yesterday had it? His fingers hesitated over the spell. His frown deepened as the realization dawned on him. The protection spell was fading and fading fast. It was going to break.

An icy tendril ran down his spine because he couldn't fix this. The protection spell was carved with a different type of magic than the rest of the Dark Curse: old magic. Ancient magic. He didn't know how to work with old magic, not many sorcerers do.

On second thought, he did know one person that could cast in old magic: Regina.