A/N: This took way too long. I'm sorry. I DID draw some inspiration from Xena, I think you'll definitely catch it. One of these days I'll just cave and write a uber, I'm sure. Anyway, thanks for all the reviews and stuff. It's crazy awesome. I didn't think anyone would like this. :)

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The next night-and several more after- Emma attempted staying up the whole night through, only to realize that no matter what she did, no matter where she put herself and no matter how much caffeine she imbibed, she simply couldn't. As near as she could tell the event (Which she had begun to internally refer to as the 'giant reset button from hell'.) struck at midnight. She'd never yet made it past 11:59.

In a bout of desperation she had jumped in her Bug and fled towards Boston, only to wake snug in her bed again the next morning. She'd performed what was tantamount to kidnapping Regina and Henry and fled for the hills again the following day, resulting in a rather spectacular engine explosion as soon as the car rolled across city limits (Something she still puzzled over.). She'd attempted setting her alarm back to give herself more time-But it reset much the same as everything else did-, had tried running out the door as soon as she'd woken, barefoot and desperate, to lock Sydney up, had even on one memorable occasion tried locking away Regina (The image of the woman handcuffed to a chair in the Mayoral mansion's elaborate study wasn't one she'd soon forget.) but nothing had any effect. It didn't seem to matter what she did or to who, every morning dawned the same as the one before, and the one before that until she couldn't even be sure how many days had really gone by. All her attempts to leave herself notes, a record, anything, even writing then, somewhat madly, carving a tally of days into her own skin, had failed just as horribly.

"Sooooooo..."

"So?" Henry's expression was bordering on down right delighted, lips smudged red with ketchup from a cheeseburger that had been almost bigger than he was. The book was a heavy presence on the table beside them. It seemed almost ominous, sitting innocently though it was next to the saltshaker, like a living thing. Or an anvil. An anvil that had been tied around her neck.

It spoke of her mental state that Emma was feeling such animosity towards a book, of all things. She wasn't even sure it was linked to her current predicament. Though admittedly it was a pretty big coincidence that the town the kid claimed was stuck in time was suddenly, well, stuck in time.

So there she was, seeking advice from her ten year old son. Whom she'd only bribed with junk food a little bit.

"Are there any stories in there about...About people being stuck in time?"

Henry quirked a brow at her in an expression he had most definitely picked up from Regina. "Well, yeah. The curse-"

"I mean besides the curse. I mean someone stuck, ah, reliving the exact same day. Over and over."

He frowned thoughtfully, pushing his crumb laden plate (Four little pickles still stacked forlornly on the edge because, as he had said when he'd peeled them off, "Eeeew.".) to the side so he could flip the fairy tale book open. Pages turned easily beneath his fingertips, the crisp paper rustling up a distinctly old-book-smell must.

"There's one kinda like that."

"Yeah?" Emma tried not to let her eagerness show but she was literally on the edge of her seat, booted feet bouncing with barely contained energy. It was lucky all her antsy jittering didn't upend the table.

"Yeah. It's kinda boring-This couple, their families hate each other and don't want them to be together. The girl, Mera, she thinks her prince died so she drinks this poison that'll kill her when night comes. Only he's alive and he goes to Rumpelstiltskin and asks for something that'll let their last day together last forever."

"That boring and you just knew it off the top of your head, huh?" Emma grinned as the little boy's cheeks tinged ever so slightly pink.

"It's just sappy, not a lot of action. In Snow White's story-"

"Stay focused kid." Emma tapped the book, now open to an illustration of a young couple. The girl, all done up in a fancy purple gown, looked surprisingly heart broken for a two dimensional painting. Looking at her starkly drawn expression, Emma could almost feel her pain pouring off the page. "How'd he get out of it?"

"Well... He didn't. Rumpelstiltskin didn't tell him that he wouldn't even remember making the deal and their village spent forever trapped reliving the same day, not knowing it."

"Forever forever?"

"Forever until the curse, of course."

"Of course." Emma sighed, all the hope his story had sparked deflating in an instant. "Do you think it could happen again, here?"

She could see the wheels turning in that little brain of his, knew he was on the verge of asking her where this line of questioning was coming from. She might even tell him- He wasn't going to remember this conversation come tomorrow anyway, what was the harm? "Here? Even if there was magic here, that was kind of like his happy ending, I guess. And the curse took all of those away. So she's probably... Gone. And he won't remember."

It didn't sound like much of a happy ending at all to Emma, but then the prince guy hadn't known he was living the same day over and over again. Maybe ignorance was bliss? Knowing certainly wasn't.

"Why so interested in this story anyway?"

That frown, ever so vaguely suspicious, was all Regina too.

"Because," Emma squirmed in her seat then leaned across the table so he could hear her whisper, "Because. I'm stuck. I've been living this same fu-er, same day over. For-" She thought back over her jumbled mental count finally shrugging. "For a while now."

Henry's eyes visibly widened, his excitement almost palpable. "Really? That's so... So cool!"

Cool? Really? But of course she should have known he was the one person in the world who would believe straight away anything she shared with him. She felt a pang of guilt knowing she hadn't cottoned on to his stories with the same enthusiasm.

Especially now that they were maybe possibly even probably true.

"Not the word I'd use, kid."

"What's it like? What have you done? Have you done anything cool? You could do anything you wanted and no one would remember... Does anyone else remember?"

"No, no. Seems to just be me." Emma chose his last question to latch on to, because really, she hadn't held much appreciation for that line of thinking before.

She could do anything. No consequences.

It was a thought to stick a pin in, anyway.

Of course, given her luck the day she decided to go crazy with would be the one that stuck.

"It's... A nightmare, actually. The same horrible things keep happening and I don't know how to stop it. Or if I can stop it. I've tried everything I can think of- Even when I save everyone it doesn't help." She hadn't known how badly she needed to talk to someone about it until it was out there, spilling fast and desperate from her lips, the elephant that had been sitting on her chest for the last week at least now traipsing freely around the room.

And there was that guilt again because the last thing the wide eyed, sweet little ten year old boy needed was to be burdened with her crazy.

It was already too late though; Henry had his determined face on, decided to help her as soon as she'd opened her mouth. She still sometimes couldn't believe such a thoughtful little person had been created from her genes.

"Maybe if you could figure out who Rumpelstiltskin is here? He'd know what to do for sure. Though maybe you shouldn't- Just if you do, be careful what you ask for. It never seems to end very well." He flipped through the pages again, settling on an image that looked more creature than man with almost golden, scaly looking skin and a wild mane of hair. He didn't look anything like anyone Emma had seen around town. Except maybe... There was something vaguely familiar about that expression but she couldn't connect it specifically with a face. "Or you could... maybe you could just ask my mom."

"What?" Emma blinked, drawn from her perusal of the illustration.

"She's the Evil Queen, right? And the Evil Queen's a really powerful witch. If anyone would know about magic or whatever that could do this, it'd be her. And the great thing is if you mess it up," And she was dearly tempted to smack him for looking so like he thought she might, "She won't even remember you asked tomorrow! If it includes her. It includes her, right?"

Emma thought back over the varying degrees of shock, surprise and outrage she'd witnessed on the Mayor's face over the past few days and nodded stiffly. "Oh yeah. It includes her, I'm pretty sure. No one acts that well."

"So basically you can ask her however you like. And if she gets mad it won't-" He paused suddenly, lower lip jutting out in something like a pout. "Hey- I'm not going to remember this either, am I?"

Emma shook her head, reaching to pat his tiny hand fondly. "Nope. 'Fraid not, kiddo."

"Ah maaaaan... Will you tell me all about it again? When you figure it out?"

"We'll see. Can I borrow this?" She drummed the fairy tale book lightly with her fingertips. Come the next day she would have to ask him for it again... And again. And probably again and again, until she had the relevant bits memorized or until it just became too tedious to deal with. "For research?"

"Of course you can." His grin stretched from ear to ear. "Keep it as long as you like."

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"Miss Swan- Unless it's an emergency I really must insist you contain yourself until office hours. Kindly remove yourself from my porch."

Emma had caught the mayor on the woman's way out the door- She now knew precisely the second Regina had left the house that morning and it was possible if she hit the ground running immediately upon waking to make it just in time- and had planted herself there, arms stretched from one edge of the door to the other as she leaned heavily on the frame. Her body was shaking from the combination of cold and exertion, golden curls in tossed in wild disarray about her face, and Regina eyed her bare feet and still pajama clad body with the corner of her mouth curled downwards. "Gone homeless, have we?"

Emma had rushed over with every intention of demanding answers, determined to extract them with whatever means necessary, but standing less than a foot away and breathing the same air, the words "You can do whatever you want! No consequences." rolling around in her brain, she found all plans escaped her.

Whatever she wanted.

The image of a hospital bed with a sheet drawn up, all wires and cold, blood on her hands that now had never really been there but would never really leave, bruised knuckles and Henry's salty tears assaulted her and she decided that she could take just this one day for herself. Just one selfish, consequence free day.

She was gentle, quietly intense as she seized the Mayor's upper arms and pushed until they hit the wall in the mansion's entry way. She captured Regina's lips as the force of hitting the wall kicked the breath from her lungs, latching on like a woman drowning.