This chapter is for tvaddict2011 with the prompt: "An old friend of Emma's comes to visit and the kids don't like them (your pick why they don't) so they cause some trouble until they leave"

This reminded me a bit of Nanny McPhee to be perfectly honest. Thank you for the prompt, and enjoy!

"Henry, Henry, come quick," Lola said, running into Henry's room.

Henry rolled his eyes. "Lola, how many times do I have to tell you to knock on my door? You don't just go bursting into other people's rooms."

Lola rolled her eyes before taking a step back and knocking on Henry's door. With as much sass as possible of course.

"What do you want?" Henry asked. "I'm right in the middle of something."

"Yeah, reading some stupid magazine," Lola said. "Someone just pulled into the driveway. And it's not someone from town either. This person isn't from here, and hasn't visited before."

Henry's eyes lit up. He loved investigations, and this sounded like an investigation. If someone new had come to town, and was visiting their house, things were about to get very interesting. Regina didn't like unexpected visitors.

But what they didn't know was that this visitor wasn't unexpected. For Regina anyway. She had called up an old friend of Emma's from one of her nicer foster homes, and had invited her to come and visit Emma in their town. The friend had agreed to come, especially if it meant seeing Emma again.

Regina hoped that seeing this friend would make Emma remember the good times that she had experienced while still in the system. Her nightmares were getting worse.

"Well, then what are we waiting for?" Henry asked. "Did you tell Ava yet about this?"

"Duh," Lola said, rolling her eyes. "I tell her everything before I tell you."

"Gee thanks," Henry grumbled before getting off of his bed. Lola just shrugged before following him to her bedroom, where Ava was already waiting.

"Took you long enough," Ava said. "Let me guess, he was reading his sports magazine again?"

"You bet," Lola said, carrying a chair over to her window to get a better view. "Any idea who our visitor is yet?"

"Nope," Ava said. "Mom went outside to greet her though. They've been talking since you left to go get Henry."

"I don't recognize her either," Henry said. "She can't have been from Mom's past, she lived in the Enchanted Forest and then here."

"Maybe Ma knows her then," Ava said.

"She gives me a bad feeling," Lola said. "Like something bad is going to happen because she's here."

Ava and Henry shared a glance. Lola's intuition was usually right, especially when it came to people. She seemed to have acquired a bit of Emma's superpower in that regard.

"Maybe we go down and meet her?" Ava suggested.

"No need," Henry said, pointing. "Looks like they're on their way inside, and I'm sure Mom will be up in a little bit to collect us to meet our guest. We just have to sit tight and wait."

Regina never did come to collect them. They ended up going back to Henry's room and starting to play video games. Whoever this guest was, she was obviously important.

After a while, everyone got tired of the video games. "Let's go get a snack from downstairs," Henry suggested, getting up. Lola and Ava gladly followed him down to the kitchen.

They heard voices from the living room, but knew better than to investigate. Regina hated eavesdropping, especially when her children did it. She had raised them better than to listen to other people's conversations.

But this time was different. Why had Regina invited a complete stranger into their home and not warned them? Or had them come down to meet their guest?

Lola stopped and waited for Henry and Ava to walk into the kitchen before sneaking over to the entrance to the living room. She was hidden in the shadows, but was close enough to be able to hear the conversation going on.

"I haven't seen Emma in years," the guest said. "How has she been?"

"Things are complicated around here," Regina said with a chuckle. "But I do think that she is fairly happy."

"And you two are married?" the guest asked. "With children?"

Regina nodded, although Lola couldn't see that part. "We've been married for about 8 years now, and have 3 children. Henry, Ava, and Lola."

"How cute," the guest said. "I never thought that Emma would ever come out to anyone, although I had suspected for awhile that she had feelings for women. I'm glad that she gets to be herself around you."

Lola's radar went off. This woman was telling a lie, and a very big one. But Regina didn't have Lola's superpower, and thought that the guest was telling the truth instead of just trying to win her over.

"Emma should be home any minute," Regina said. "Thank you so much for coming all of this way just to see her. I know that she'll be delighted to see an old friend."

Lola had had enough. She wanted to see who this intruder was, and what her business was doing here. Peeking around the corner, she caught a glimpse of the guest sitting in her chair. She was wearing as fancy clothes as Regina was, holding herself with poise and grace. The only difference between herself and Regina was their hair and skin colors. The guest had blonde hair, and was as pale as Snow White. Lola giggled at the comparison.

"Lola," Henry hissed, making her jump. "What are you doing? You're not supposed to eavesdrop on Mom's conversations."

"Something isn't right," Lola whispered. "This lady isn't who she says she is at all. My lie detector is going off big time."

"We can't do anything about it now," Henry said. "Come on, Ava and I made snacks. Ma can deal with this when she gets home."

Lola glanced at the doorway of the living room again before following Henry out to the kitchen. Something was up, and it wasn't good.

Emma ended up texting Regina that she would be late getting home, so Regina decided to introduce their guest to the kids. There was nothing else really to do anyway.

"I think they're all upstairs," Regina said. "I'll just be right back."

She left quickly, not even noticing the kids sitting around the counter in the kitchen, discussing the guest and Lola's weird feeling about her.

"She feels off," Lola said. "Like she's not really who Mom thinks that she is."

"Then how would she even get into town?" Ava asked. "Wouldn't Mom have had to let her into the town in the first place?"

Henry shook his head. "The barrier is down for some reason. Anyone can enter or leave the town."

"So what do we do?" Lola asked. "We can't let Ma come home and see that we've let someone sketchy into the house."

"Wait a minute though," Henry said. "You said she was mentioning not seeing Ma in ages, which means that the two of them go way back. What if they're old friends and we're reading too much into this?"

Ava shook her head. "I don't think-"

All three kids jumped and turned to the doorway of the kitchen as they heard the scuffle of a shoe on the floor.

"Who's there?" Henry asked, stepping in front of his sisters.

The stranger stepped into the kitchen. "I'm sorry for startling you. Your mother told me to wait in the kitchen for her."

Lola's lie detector went off again. Regina never let people just walk around the mansion, especially visitors. She shared an uneasy look with Ava and Henry. This woman was off.

"Who are you?" Lola asked bluntly.

The guest smiled kindly, like she was used to young children questioning her. "My name is Sophie. I'm an old friend of your mother's."

"Which one?" Ava asked, looking at Sophie skeptically.

"Emma," Sophie said. "I was with her in one of her better foster homes. She and I got very close over the years, and Regina asked me to visit."

Lola's lie detector went off even louder, but before she could say anything more, Regina walked into the room. "There you three are. I thought you were upstairs."

"We got hungry," Henry said, shrugging.

Just then, the front door opened and closed, alerting everyone to the fact that Emma was home. The three kids quickly ran to the foyer to greet her, followed by Regina. No one noticed when Sophie began rummaging around the kitchen for anything to take with her.

"What's with the welcoming committee?" Emma asked, laughing.

"We missed you," Lola mumbled, holding onto Emma tightly. "By the way, there's some weird lady in the house."

"Lola," Regina scolded.

Lola just shrugged. "I have a bad feeling about her, that's all. Where is she anyway?"

"Right here," Sophie said, walking into the foyer. "I'm assuming you were talking about me, since I am the only one missing after all."

Emma looked at Sophie with wide eyes. "Who are you?"

Sophie looked at Emma sadly. "I know that it's been a while, but did you really forget me? We were best friends once. You were a foster kid with me, and then I was adopted and you were moved to another family."

Emma shook her head. "I never made any friends but Lily."

The bad feeling in Lola was slowly starting to get worse. Regina just looked back and forth between Emma and Sophie before grabbing Emma's hand gently. "Maybe we should all have dinner. Sophie can stay the night, and then we can talk tomorrow morning about all of this."

The kids all looked to Emma, who just nodded. It couldn't hurt to have Sophie overnight. Right?

This is already so long that I decided to make it two parts. See you tomorrow! That's when the fun will really begin.