When Regina comes down to breakfast the morning after the tableau, she is surprised to find that she has beaten both her mother and her sister downstairs. Her father sits alone, studying the morning paper, as Regina takes her seat. She pours herself coffee from the silver carafe and goes about adding cream when her father clears his throat.

"You are the talk of the town," Henry Mills announces, sliding the paper across the tablecloth to his daughter.

"I doubt that," Regina responds, but she takes the paper eagerly, skims the article that Archie Hopper has written about the tableau. There, in black and white ink, is the following line: "And Miss Regina Mills, as our final season, gave us pause to remember and appreciate the austere beauty of a Winter landscape." The words are familiar (she can still remember the way that his mouth moved when he spoke them, the sparkle in his eyes); the compliment is what is still strange, and so she blushes under both this praise and her father's beaming smile.

"I am one of four girls mentioned in this," she tells her father, "but as long as you think I'm the fairest, Daddy, then I'm happy."

"Always, my darling." He reaches for her hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles like he has since she was a girl. "You will always be the fairest in my eyes."

There is a racket on the stairs as Zelena and her troop arrive, Cora on their heels ushering the slowest one in (Regina thinks this one might be named Dorothy but she doesn't particularly care). Regina folds the paper so that the article about the tableau is hidden from sight.

And yet, that is all that her mother and sister want to talk about.

They dissect the costumes, comment on the girls ("That Belle French is quite shy, Ruby Lucas laughs too loudly") and issue no compliments for the entirety of breakfast. Everything about the tableau was gaudy or gauche in their eyes, and even though it is not expliclity stated, it is implied that Regina's participation is also questionable.

Regina sits, contemplating her eggs and pondering her escape. She is no longer hungry, not with the full might of both Zelena and Cora deflating the small surge of pride that her father and Mr. Locksley had given her. The tableau was one way to occupy her time and remove her from this house and now that it is over, her days stretch out before her, static yet uncertain. Perhaps that young Nolan boy will propose to Mary-Margaret; wedding planning would be a welcome diversion from club meetings and church…

The maid enters and approaches Regina. There are a dozen red roses, bound in twine, cradled in her arms. She also clutches a note. "For Miss Regina," she says, holding them out towards her.

Regina is surprised, but flattered, at the haphazard bouquet (the roses look familiar…). She takes the note, opens it and scans through its contents.

A pitiful bouquet - borrowed not bought- but fitting for the Queen of Winter nonetheless.

"Who is it from?" Cora asks, and Regina folds the note until it is very small.

"A nameless admirer." Regina has every idea who sent the note and the roses - that thief, stealing from her uncle - and yet she will not tell her mother lest the woman start to get matchmaking ideas into her head. She'll enjoy the attention, but it is a harmless flirtation – nothing more. "Put these in water, would you please, Mary?"

The maid takes the roses from Regina, and across the table Zelena purses her lips together, a witty retort no doubt on her lips, but Regina rises and places her napkin on the table before her sister can speak.

"Perhaps I will go for a walk today," she tells no one in particular. She glances down the table. "Zelena, darling, Dorothy's braids are in her porridge." She bends over and places a kiss on her father's cheek, and leaves the room to the dulcet tones of Zelena scolding her youngest (Cora, Regina expects, must still be working out who sent her the roses).

The Storybrooke Library was heavily damanged during the war; afterwards, Belle French's mother led the crusade to repair and restore the building, to modernize and expand, and her daughter took up the cross after her mother's death. It has become Regina's favorite place in Storybrooke, because it is a haven – away from her mother, from responsibility, from society.

"Hello Belle," she greets the young girl who sits at the desk in the reading room. Belle is practically vibrating with excitement, the newspaper spread out before her.

"Did you read what Mr. Hopper wrote about the tableau?" she asks, eyes wide and grinning. "We should plan another!"

"Mr. Hopper has a way with words," Regina demurs. "You were splendid."

"Not like you, Regina – you were beautiful." Belle's eyes light up and she opens a drawer in the desk, pulls out a package. "The new Gazette – I saved it for you to read first before I put it out for everyone."

Regina smiles. She appreciates that Belle knows her proclivities, and that she is thoughtful enough to do this for her. Regina knows that she has edges, that she is not the most pleasant to be around, but Belle seems to ignore all of that in her ability to be genuinely kind to others who may not always deserve it.

"Thank you," Regina says, taking the package and unwrapping the paper. There is the newest issue of the Women's Federated Gazette. "I'll bring it back when I'm done."

Regina finds a small table in a secluded corner of the library and starts to read. She loves these magazines – for women, by women – because, in addition to the articles on motherhood which she skims when she is in a particularly self-loathing mood, they also have essays by women who have traveled abroad and who have seen far more than Regina has seen. She's left Storybrooke – she attended women's college in Greensboro for a few terms before Cora demanded she return home, she visited New York once with her father, and Kansas once to see Zelena – but she hasn't been anywhere else, and there's a wanderlust that takes her whenever she reads about another woman's adventures. They're all single, like her, and they all have means and are of a certain age where traveling alone is not so socially unacceptable.

She sighs, turns the page to the ads for governesses and companions. On the darkest days of her soul, when Cora is too much, she's thought about this before – working for a well-to-do family and leaving home, earning an income and having her own space. She could see herself in New York, with a small apartment (she could learn to cook and clean, and it would drive Cora mad).

One ad catches her eye – placed by a Captain K. Jones and his wife, it requests a governess for their eleven year old son, and does not require extensive schooling as much as common sense and patience. We will be leaving for the continent within the next few months and will need someone willing to join us as we start on a new adventure. Room and board, plus a small stipend (negotiable). Please direct all inquiries to Mrs. K. Jones, New York –

Regina closes the Gazette, her finger on the page, her heart racing. What if she inquired? What if she was able to go abroad – a military rank may not be inherited wealth but it might be something else entirely, and she takes a deep breath, opens the magazine again.

At the worst, she writes and the position has been filled. At the best, they reply and ask more about her. At the very best, she may never have to see her mother or sister again.

"May I borrow this?" she asks Belle, who solemnly agrees and makes her promise to take care of it and return it tomorrow. She does, slipping the Gazette into her coat pocket, and she leaves the library in higher spirits than she entered, because things seem better than they did yesterday and –

She crashes into someone as she walks out of the building and only manages to keep herself upright by clutching onto their clothing. She grips the waistcoat securely, glancing up to say something, when she recognizes those eyes and that mouth and she inhales, sharply, all bluster disappearing.

"I'm so sorry," he says, helping her upright again, his hands on her hips (she is still clutching at his waistcoat, now more than aware of the hard muscles underneath the layers of clothing, the solidness of his male form as he leans his head towards her). "Are you all right, Miss Mills?"

Regina lets go, noticing the pleats in his clothing, trying to still her racing heart. She takes another deep breath before looking back at him, a smile on her face. "I'm perfectly fine, Mr. Locksley," she tells him. "I was just distracted."

"Daydreaming?" he asks, wry smile on his lips (why is he so close?) and Regina glances back to the library façade.

"I did just exit a library, Mr. Locksley – you can hardly blame me if my head is in the clouds." And then adds, for good measure, "I'm curious as to what your excuse is."

"Perhaps I was daydreaming as well," he remarks, eyes searching her face for something, seeming to find it. "You were lovely last night, in case you haven't been told that today."

Regina smiles, still pleasantly surprised at his compliment and the warmth that flows through her at his words. It has been some time since someone as handsome as Mr. Locksley has flirted with her, and she will enjoy every minute of it. "It's a welcome change," she admits. "Thank you, Mr. Locklsey."

"I saw someone drop some flowers by the Mills residence this morning," he asks, looking out across the street and not at her. Regina laughs, and he turns back towards her, confused.

"A thief – someone who stole flowers from my uncle's garden, but…" she hesitates. She wants to tell him how she really feels, but he is a stranger, and so she knows she should follow the rules of society and be pleasantly courteous. Mr. Locklsey is looking at her intensely, concern etched on his handsome features, and she decides to through propriety to the wind.

"It's been a long time since anyone sent me flowers," Regina admits. Her lip trembles a bit as she speaks the words, and so she ducks her head and looks away, playing with the sleeves of her coat before adding, "Thief or not, I should thank whoever did that for giving me a modicum of excitement in an otherwise tedious and lonely life."

There is a look that crosses Mr. Locksley's face that Regina can't quite read (at least, she doesn't want to read it as pity) and so she nods her head, flashes her biggest smile, and says, "My sister is in town so I really must be going, Mr. Locksley. Have a lovely day."

As she turns to leave, she hears him reply, "And you as well, Miss Mills," but his voice is soft and the sound of carriages make her think that she might be hearing things.

On the walk home, she dissects the meeting from multiple angles and realizes how silly she sounds, admitting that the flowers made her joyful, admitting that her life is tedious and lonely– all to a stranger who barely knows her, who does business with her uncle and who will be gone within a fortnight. He must be this flirtatious with all the women in Storybrooke, and Regina should not consider herself better or lucky. The flowers were a random occurrence, and now that he knows how pathetic she is, she doubts that she will have to speak to him again.

Regina writes the letter to Mrs. Jones that afternoon, laying out her case plainly and simply: she is thirty-five and unmarried, not well traveled but well-read, has some experience with her sister's children but above all else she is adaptable and can be patient. She lists Mary-Margaret and Belle as references, seals the letter, and discretely has it sent out with the evening's post.

There are flowers again the next morning.

This time they are blue periwinkles – the sort that grow in Shepherd's Field outside of town – still wrapped in twine, still with an unsigned note. It reads, A lady as exquisite as you should receive flowers every day. She knows immediately who it is from, and she is absolutely surprised

Regina places the new bouquet on her dressing table next to the old one, and it is not until she sees them together that she realizes that she wore a periwinkle blue dress the day before.

Flowers arrive with alarming frequency – not every day, but close enough, and usually after some social gathering or outing where they run into each other (though there are some days when they arrive apropos of nothing, and those are the best days). There are hothouse Orchids 'borrowed' from the French's greenhouse, wildflower and daises, more roses appropriated from the various gardens across Storybrooke.

Regina loves the flowers, but she finds the frustration that it causes in her mother even more satisfying. Cora cannot for the life of her guess who the mysterious suitor is (because that's how Cora identifies him, as a suitor even if it is not the case) and all of her attempts to find him are fruitless.

Regina writes Mr. Locksley a note of thanks, mails it from the post office to the bank even though she could just walk it to him. His response, in the next bouquet, includes instructions about leaving notes in the hollow of a particular abandoned tree in the park.

She plays along, because even if this harmless flirtation, it makes her happy. She is bored with women's club socials and bridge games, bored with high tea and time at the library. She likes the way that he makes her feel – alive and beautiful, not aged and worthless – and she wants to hold onto it as long as possible. And she knows, with every fiber of her being, when the bouquets stop, and when the notes end, and when nothing more comes of this, that it will break her and yet, she continues to accept the bouquets, starts to write notes and drop them in the hollow of the tree on early morning walks, notes about nothing and also unsigned, stories about her day or her favorite starts to linger in the park more now that the weather is better (his responses are always polite, including his favorite quotes as well as stories about his own day. She savors each and every word of every note before burning them lest Zelena or Cora find them).

"Something's going on," Mary-Margaret points out one afternoon, when she meets up with Regina in the park. "You've been actually pleasant lately."

"I'm glad you set such a high bar for me," Regina remarks archly, and Mary-Margaret sighs.

"Not that – just that…you seem happy and –" she squints off into the distance. "Is that Mr. Locksley from the bank?" Her brow furrows. "What's he doing near that tree?"

Regina watches, mouth agape, as Mr. Locksley pulls her note from the hollow of the tree, watches as he smiles while he opens it, and it makes her heart race and her face flush to see what she assumes to be happiness on his face as he reads her response.

"Regina," Mary-Margaret says, "what's – "

And then, his eyes rise to meet hers, and she can feel the ice running through her veins as he looks at her, and her stomach drop. He smiles, and beings to approach them.

"Miss Blanchard, Miss Mills," he calls out. "Lovely day for a walk."

"Yes it is," Mary-Margaret says without missing a beat. She does not mention the note, makes small talk while Regina struggles to school her features, struggles to calm her traitorous heart as it beats, fast and furious, in her chest (it doesn't help that Mr. Locksley keeps glancing over at her, keeps making it race). Finally he bids them goodbye, and Mary-Margaret pinches Regina's arm.

"Are you two passing notes?" she whispers, threading her arm through Regina's and practically dragging her forward. Mary-Margaret is buzzing with – energy? excitement? something of that nature – and when Regina responds, "Perhaps," she practically squeals.

"That is so romantic, Regina – is he the one who sends you all those flowers? - oh Regina, he's so handsome – "

"It's just a flirtation – a way to amuse an old maid," Regina says, trying to deflect even if she is secretly pleased at her cousin's enthusiasm. "Tell me about your newest idea," she adds, changing the subject.

They walk around the park as Mary-Margaret details a play she wishes to stage and when they part, Mary-Margaret promises not to tell a soul about Regina's dalliance. Regina considers her cousin's excitement on the way home, letting it propel her through the front doors of the house and right towards the mail tray, where a letter waits for her addressed from Mrs. K. Jones, New York –

She races upstairs and tears it open, devouring the contents, skimming pleasantries and then -

My husband and I would like to learn more about you, Miss Mills. I will tell you about ourselves and our son, Henry, who is quite the precocious and charming young man. He is in love with fairy tales…

The letter is signed, Emma Jones, and Regina reads it once more before she realizes that the Jones family, who she wrote to a few weeks ago, have inquired about her. Which means they might be interested in her, and might, potentially offer the position to her.

Thoughts of traveling, of leaving here, flood her mind, and she pulls out pen and paper, begins to draft a reply. She can't help but think of leaving Storybroke, and when her heart skips a beat as she thinks about the look on Mr. Locksley's face, Regina firmly reminds herself that this is just a flirtation, nothing more (even if she's not quite sure that she believes herself).