Author's Note: IT HAS BEEN AGES. I did not forget. I moved across country and started a new job and also maybe had issues with this chapter. Bonus is I'm already more than a thousand words into chapter 2. And Vexed folks can expect an update later this week or early next week maybe. GET EXCITED. I know I am!

Chapter Three

"Why is Emma Swan's face sketched into that horse's whorls?"

"You're seeing things."

"And the sun. And the trees and the—"

"You keep saying I'm the one obsessed with Swan but you're the one seeing her face in a horse's ass Regina."

"Because you drew it there! And there. And there. And," she snapped the book of drawings closed, her mind shutting down from the sheer horror of what she'd just witnessed. "Did I just come across a portrait of me and Gold," she gripped the book so tight her nails left impressions in its cover, "with Emma's face instead of our own?"

"No."

She ripped the book open and held the offending page out to Hook while averting her eyes. "There. That is very clearly me and that is very clearly Gold and that is very clearly Emma Swan's face."

Hook peered. And peered. And peered so long she thought he might have been blind before blushing.

"Hm."

She closed the book again and rapped him on the head with it. "Stop drawing her face! She's supposed to see familiar stories and familiar faces. Not your Kaufmanesque horror show."

"My what?"

"Stop. Drawing. Emma."

He snatched the book away and then wagged it in her face, "Stop. Blaming. Me. You're the one that's supposed to be getting this book to her and convincing her we're all real and all you've done is avoid her calls and play with Henry at school."

"I'm waiting for you to finish." And she wasn't playing with Henry. She rarely even got the chance to talk to him.

"No love, you're stalling, as you have been since you first suggested we convince them with a book and I stupidly agreed."

"Short of kidnapping them this is our only option."

She shouldn't have put kidnapping on the table because Hook's face lit up at the suggestion.

"We're not kidnapping them," she said immediately. "Besides we can't get back to the enchanted forest until they believe. Or did you forget that with the entire contents of the liquor cabinet in your stomach?"

"Maybe. It could also be the sheer tediousness of sitting in this awful apartment day in and day out."

She'd forbidden him from leaving as long as he was unshaven and wearing his silly leather coat. And Hook had been vain enough to suffer rather than lose either.

"You could—"

"I'm not shaving," he snapped.

"How about just the coat then? That thing smells like the backside of an ogre."

"How would you know? Spend many days up an ogre's ass—you're distracting me from my point! Stop avoiding Emma," he hissed.

"I—" Words failed her. Much like rational plans failed her when she was in this new Emma's presence.

"I—" he mimicked her, "don't care. We need Swan. That's your job."

"Fine." She popped her finger and missed magic. His impudence would have been much more easily handled if she could just turn him into a toad for a few hours. She leaned in. "I'll befriend Emma." She smiled. "And when I do I'll text you 'selfies.' Of us. Hugging. Ecstatically." The words rolled of her tongue and lingered heavy in the air.

Were Hook a better man he would have blushed. But he just glowered. "I don't know what a selfie is, but if it involves you behaving inappropriately with an amnesiatic Swan I know I don't like it."

####

Regina Mills stood her up.

They made plans for a movie and Emma set Henry up with enough pizza and video games to keep him entertained for a month, let alone a couple of hours while she was out, and Regina didn't show.

Being stood up stung, what with it essentially being out and out rejection.

The calls that went to voicemail after two rings were worse though. Because voicemail after two rings didn't mean a dead phone. No. No, it meant she was being ignored.

Regina was hiding from her.

So a week later she worked up the nerve and she dropped Henry off twenty minutes early and got out of her car and waited, leaning against the hood to keep her backside warm and trying not to scowl at people as a brisk wind chilled her front side.

She didn't know exactly what she was going to say to Regina. She hadn't figured out anything beyond expressing disappointment and asking that it not affect things with Henry.

Which was maybe worse than the whole being stood up and then ignored.

Emma'd been the idiot trying to make friends with Henry's new teacher. She'd come on too strong, and now, if the woman turned out to be crazy, or worse, a massive jerk, then it was her son that would have to pay the price.

So she was going to salvage that part at least.

Regina rounded the corner with her head held high, as though she hadn't chickened out and she hadn't been avoiding Emma.

Until she saw her.

Then she stopped and seemed to swallow nervously.

Emma tried to make the ensuing awkwardness easier by meeting Regina at the school's steps. That way even if they were both mortified and never spoke again it would all have happened quickly. Maybe even too fast to remember properly.

But when they were close enough to talk without shouting there was silence. Emma not sure how to express herself and Regina rigid with terror.

"I get it," Emma said. Finally breaking the silence and forging ahead. "You don't want to see me outside of a parent-teacher conference and that's fine—I'm kind of offended and confused but I'm not gonna push it. I just—"

"That's not it."

Wait. What? "Really?"

"I do," Regina insisted. "I do want to see you." Then why it seem like pulling teeth just for Regina to spit that declaration out? "I just—"

"You're scared."

"Yes—no!" She was appalled. "No, I'm not scared."

Emma glanced around, "I mean. Did you think that we were going to do exactly what I said we wouldn't—Wait." She stepped back. "Have you ever? With," she motioned down at herself.

Regina rolled her eyes, "Not that its any of your business Miss Swan, but I have and that's not the issue."

"It's a perfectly legitimate one Regina. A lot of people would be nervous even though I've said a dozen times we're just—"

"I don't date," she announced, sighing dramatically and acting like Emma had just dragged something out of here. "I—You asked me on a date. Very clearly. After coffee and a walk through a supermarket you asked me on a date. And I don't…do…that."

"Ever?"

"I lived in a town about as large as a Macy's. There weren't opportunities. And besides. Now I'm Henry's…teacher."

"Henry knows already. I tell the kid everything."

"And your openness is commendable, if terrifying, but we both have to admit this could—would—make things difficult for him."

As interesting as Regina was—as important as it felt to get to know her—Henry was more important. So Emma took a step back and shoved her hands in her pockets.

"What about friends?"

"With me?" Why did Regina always sound so incredulous—so surprised that Emma would find her interesting?

"We could be friends. That was my whole point before my mouth opened. Let's just take dating out of the equation."

Regina hesitated.

Emma pressed her infinitesimal advantage, "I mean, Henry says I'm great at being a friend."

"He's thirteen."

"They're very picky at that age," she deadpanned.

Regina ducked her head and pushed her hair behind her ear. And then she smiled. That soft one that did nothing to assuage Emma's crush.

Emma stooped forward and tried to catch her eye. "Can we try just friends? No dates. Dutch on coffee. All flirtation off the table."

"No flirting?"

"I won't even wink."

Regina popped the knuckle of her index finger. Had to be a nervous habit. She nodded then. "I can be friends."

"Friends don't stand each other up."

She raised her head. The eye contact was electric—promising that whatever they could try and be to one another it was going to, at the very least, be memorable. "I won't."

"Friends do lunch too."

"Tomorrow?"

"How about Saturday. You've got kids to teach remember?"

Regina blushed. Her cheeks red as she raised her chin haughtily— "Saturday."

####

In her dreams she had a mom and she knew what she looked like. It was as though her face had been smooshed together with Henry's. His hair. His eyes. Her cheekbones. But everything blurred enough that she didn't get details as much as she got hints of details. In a dream hints were all she needed and even though she couldn't remember her mother's face when she woke up she knew it. Her mom was her age somehow—like leaving her off a highway in the middle of a forest had arrested the whole aging process. She'd race across and empty street and she'd hug her and her voice would contain every ounce of regret and longing—all the emotions Emma had felt too acutely when she'd tried to give Henry up.

Then she'd wake up to being an orphan again and the chill of the room—the silence of it—would be oppressive.

She didn't tell Henry about the dreams of a mother she'd never known. While they shared everything but underwear he didn't need to know his mom had a bad case of the Orphan Annies.

But she could tell Regina.

She told Regina.

It spilled right out of her over corned beef sandwiches thicker than her fist. Regina had a talent for listening. She sat there with a perfectly inscrutable expression on her face. No judgement or poorly placed amusement—just concern.

"Why do you think you've been dreaming of her," she asked, her head tilted just so. Her dark eyes could look straight through Emma. They were terrifyingly focused and yet cooly distant. The kind of eyes that should have been scary but left Emma only…curious.

And Emma had no idea why she'd been dreaming of her. She'd gone months without thinking of that woman—the one who'd given her up—abandoned her in the woods.

It was the crazy pirate, maybe. Showing up at her door and begging for her help to save some unseen "family." Henry was her family, but the man's crazy ranting must have unearthed long dormant emotions she very much wanted to stay dormant.

"This guy showed up at my apartment the other day," she said, "Ranting about family. Maybe it got me thinking?"

Regina sipped her water through a straw and raised an eyebrow. "Crazy men often show up ranting about family?"

"It was a first," she said dryly.

"Did you know him?"

"Nope. And I haven't seen him since, thus the crazy theory is holding pretty strong. But he talked like I had family—you know family besides Henry. I haven't had that—haven't thought about having that—in a while."

Regina poked the ice at the bottom of her cup with her straw. "I know the feeling. Being content—and then someone muscles their way into your life and—" She froze. Frowned. Like memories, good and bad, were overwhelming her.

"It throws your for a loop," Emma said softly.

Regina focused on her again. Eventually a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "A very big one."

Something un "just friends" passed between them and Emma sat back, tossing her napkin onto her finished sandwich and reaching for her water.

"This was a good lunch," she declared. Maybe if she said it loud enough all the "connecting" going on between her and Regina would disappear—or at least be forgotten.

"It was filling," Regina agreed.

"Company wasn't bad either."

Regina looked up sharply, "I thought you said no flirting."

"I was being polite. You're the one that keeps interpreting everything as a come on."

The blush started on Regina's cheeks. Two high points like apples. Emma couldn't resist leaning forward and lowering her voice, the corner of her mouth curling up wolfishly, "I'm beginning to think you have a crush."

The panic that distorted Regina's features was palpable enough that Emma was forced to sit back and give her space.

"I don't," Regina insisted.

Emma peered down at her cuticles.

"Ask me about my book."

Emma looked back up. The color was fading from Regina's cheeks and her eyes were bright and focused again. One side of her mouth quirked up into a smile Emma found very…

Nope. Just friends.

"The one I'm writing," Regina elaborated.

"The children's book," she said, pointlessly clarifying a fact they both knew just to give Regina a little more time to compose herself. "There's progress?"

Regina continued smiling—the move away from flirtation easing her back into the woman Emma really enjoyed spending time with. "There is progress. H—Killian sobered up enough to start on the artwork."

Emma acted impressed, "He did? How healthy for him."

"And good for me. Would you like to see a photo? It's just rough but—"

"A drunk guy's attempt at drawing a children's book? Who could resist?"

Regina pushed her phone across the table and Emma leaned over to look at the photo she'd taken.

The drawing was done in charcoals, which meant heavy shadows and swaths of empty space. It was a good drawing. If creepy.

Dark for a children's book. Long gnarled branches of trees reached in from the edges of the page, pulling the darkness with them and threatening to suffocate the sign that show in bright white relief.

"Storybrooke."

The name tickled the edges of her mind. Images of some other time flitted across her consciousness. Memories.

She blinked and the haze of the past dissipated, leaving her again in the present. "Isn't that already the name of a kid's book?"

"No," Regina said. And her voice seemed distant.

"It just seems…familiar."

"Does it?"

Regina made no move to retrieve her phone. She cocked her head to the side and when Emma looked up she found eyes as dark as the shadows on the page.

Emma smiled, "Guess that means you're onto something."

Regina smiled and for half a second it was unnerving—as if it couldn't reach her eyes. "Guess it must."

####

Regina gave her son and his birth mother a new life and new memories. She made them happy. She'd given them joy that she—that no one—could have given them without magic.

But she hadn't given them money. Or at least enough. That was painfully evident by that ugly little yellow bug Emma drove around. And asides about money when it was the two of them doing "coffee."

And Henry being the last kid to be picked up.

Again.

He never seemed to mind it. She'd watch him talk with friends who were, one by one, picked up by parents and nannies. Then he'd pull a book out of his bag and flop onto the stairs leading down to the sidewalk and he'd read.

Every day.

Most days Emma was only a little late. The teachers would all still be busy packing up their own belongings when she'd squeal to a halt in front of the school and Henry would dash to the car with a content smile on his face.

Regina would watch them drive off fighting a melange of anger and melancholy and jealousy.

But that Friday she watched teacher after teacher leave. Watched school aids and office staff and others go. It was just her and the janitors and the waning light to keep Henry company.

The heels of her shoes were noisy on the pavement—loud even to her. She took a seat beside him, flipping the edges of her coat up over her legs and leaning forward to hold her legs.

Henry didn't look up from his book and Regina fought the urge to engage him.

For all the changes her new curse had brought Henry was still Henry. Quiet and thoughtful. He had to come to her. She could never chase him. So she watched yellow and green and black cabs sale down the street and old men shuffle down the sidewalk being led by tiny dogs and she waited with him.

"She's not normally this late," Henry finally offered.

His voice was always deeper tha she remembered. She heard it every day. Spoke to him as often as propriety would allow, and still there were hints of a stranger in that rapidly developing tenor.

She closed her eyes so he wouldn't see her stricken merely by his words.

"She's not," she asked, eyes still closed.

She heard him close his book and tuck it into his bag. "Stuff comes up sometimes."

There was the barest of hesitancy in his words. Just enough that Regina chanced a look to confirm. He was worried. His eyes focused on the intersection her car would come from every day.

"It's not like she forgets me," he said.

"No." How could she? Henry was Emma's world. And she was, conversely, his. She leaned forward to intercept his focused gaze and looked into eyes she could never—would never—forget. Clever hazel eyes that used to look at her with adoration and then recrimination. Now they looked through her. Until she said, "Have you called her."

Suddenly they were focused.

She started to pull her phone out of her purse.

"I have a phone," Henry protested.

"And you don't want to use it?"

He returned his attention to the end of the street. "She's probably at the police station." At Regina's raised eyebrow Henry continued, "She still does bonds sometimes. Then she gets stuck at the police station waiting on paperwork."

"So…she'll be here?"

He nodded. "She will."

Regina sighed. Her son. Always impressed—always trusting—of the woman who'd thrown him away. "Then," she said, sucking in another deep breath, "why don't I wait with you?"

"I'm fine."

He wasn't. He was more nervous than he'd ever say out loud.

"I know," she insisted. "But I'm not."

He rolled his eyes—knowing exactly what she was doing.

"Do you mind," she asked.

"It's fine," he sighed. "I guess."

He returned to his book, holding it too close to his face and lingering on each word.

And Regina allowed herself to be content. Just for the moment. To pretend that she wasn't in New York City with a son who was a stranger.

It wasn't as hard as she thought. Not when ten minutes later he leaned closer to her and moved the book between them to allow her to follow along.

He still smelled the same—a year in a whole new world hadn't robbed him of the scent she'd been inhaling since he was a swaddled infant. And he was still too warm for comfort. He burned hot. Her little furnace she used to say when he'd crawl into bed after a nightmare.

"You can read too," he said. It was a childish gesture for a boy who acted so wise.

Regina said nothing.

She hunched down to read along and she only just held back the audible gasp when she realized what he was reading.

She should have known. It was a fairy tale.

One too acutely familiar for Regina's own taste.

One lived. One still being lived and threatening everything. One forcing her on this journey through time and space back to a son she'd thought lost forever.

The Snow Queen.