When Emma had turned ten, she'd been moved to a new group home—the last one, as it would turn out, that she would be subjected to in Boston at the very least. As usual, she'd been frankly terrified upon moving in, having long learned that the pecking order in a group home wasn't necessarily determined by age, but by time—time spent living in the home. At ten, she'd been on the lower end of the age spectrum, and at the very lowest end of the time spectrum. Oh, and she had already been tagged as that crazy girl, with all the pleasantness that inevitably brought.
And hence: terrified.
She hadn't shown it, though. She'd known already that group home kids zeroed in on overt fear like sharks to blood—and besides, she was Emma Swan. When stripped down to her basics—for example, when she was scared out of her mind—Emma was nothing but fight or flight and, well, only one of those options had been available to her.
Unfortunately, wanting to fight didn't translate to being able to fight, and for the first few weeks—well. She'd survived. That was the best that could have been said of it.
That was until the oldest, most intimidating boy in the home—most of a man, really: sixteen, tattooed, on his way to six foot, and with a seemingly congenital scowl—had forcibly yanked her aside, laughed at her pitiful attempts to get away, and told her something she'd never, ever forgotten.
"You want to fight, Swan? Here's how you fight: hit first, hit hard, hit where it hurts. That's all you need to know."
It was possibly the most important piece of advice Emma Swan had ever received.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, Emma had rather failed at item number one: hitting first.
In fact, depending on your point of view, you could say she hadn't even gotten the first two hits in. Though she supposed that, technically, Regina turning up to the bed-and-breakfast the following morning with a basket full of blood-red honeycrisp apples fell more into the obvious threat category, albeit an unconvincing one (seriously, apples?). If anything, it had the exact opposite effect—particularly when Regina had declared that Henry was in therapy.
"Therapy." Emma's jaw had locked so rapidly she was half-afraid she would crack something.
"Yes. Therapy," Regina said, a thin, utterly mirthless smile on her face. "You see, Miss Swan, it's all under control. Take my advice, Miss Swan, only one of us knows what's best for Henry."
Emma silently clenched and unclenched her fist, well aware that her famed temper was a mere handful of degrees away from the boil. "Yeah. I'm starting to think you're right about that."
In any case, whilst the threat had been basically useless as threats went it had pointed Emma to her first port of call once she'd dropped Henry off at school. Even if it had taken a good twenty minutes waiting outside a door to convince herself that, yeah, she genuinely needed to do this. For Henry.
"Emma Swan." Archie Hopper, PhD in clinical psychology, stood as Emma finally entered. "I was just reading about you."
Emma closed the door behind her, but didn't move more than touching distance away. "Hi."
"Let me guess, you're here for a little help with post-traumatic stress," Dr Hopper joked, drawing a thin smile and an ever thinner laugh from Emma. God, she hated shrinks. "That diagnosis was free, by the way."
"No, actually," Emma said, attempting to construct her least terrible Stepford smile and telling herself not to fidget, not to fidget, not to fidget—"I'm here about Henry."
"Ah. I'm sorry—" And to the man's credit, he did actually look sorry, "—but, but I really shouldn't divulge—patient confidentiality. You understand."
Emma nodded, way, way too stiffly. "I know. I'm sorry. Just—this fairytale... thing. Where everyone is a character in his book. That's..."
He inclined his head, encouraging her to continue, to say the word that had treacherously almost fallen out of her mouth—but no. Not that word.
"...unusual," she finished meekly, and immediately hated herself for it. As if euphemism is any better, Swan.
Fortunately, Archie seemed sufficiently satisfied—or, probably more accurately, insufficiently unsatisfied—with her answer to nod and smile professionally.
"It is. I think—" he paused for a moment, evidently collecting his thoughts. "I think that these stories... they're his language. He has no way to express complex emotions so he's translating as best he can; this is how he communicates. And he's using this book—are you alright, Miss Swan?"
Breathe, Emma. Breathe. She closed for an eyes for a moment, gathering herself as her heartbeat hammered in her ears. "I'm okay. Thanks. Go on."
"You look awfully pale—"
"I'm fine, Dr Hopper," she interjected immediately, her voice suddenly whip-sharp, her eyes blazing—until she remembered herself. "Uh. Um. Something I ate. Sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you."
"It's quite alright, Emma," Archie said, thought his brow remained furrowed. "Though if this isn't the best time, then we can arrange an appointment."
"No, no," Emma immediately waved the suggestion away, still with that oh-so-brittle smile on her face. "Now's the best time." She breathed in, breathed out. "So, this book—Henry said he got it a month ago. Has he been seeing you longer than that?"
A long, somewhat awkward pause. "Um—yes he has."
"So it's his mother."
Archie frowned. "No, I don't think you—"
"Regina." This time, Emma didn't even care that she was interrupting.
"Uh—" Okay, Emma was definitely straying close to that whole patient confidentiality line now. "His mother is a—a very complicated woman. And over the years, her attempts to bring Henry closer have only backfired."
"I—oh. Okay." That did explain a fair bit about the Mayor—even if Emma still thought she needed an aggressive dosage of chill pills.
Archie exhaled audibly, then moved back to a filing cabinet behind him. "Why don't you take a look at the file," he said, producing a folder. Thick. Brown. Heavy. Filled with pages. Just like—
"No—no, I, I think that'll be okay," Emma stammered, already starting to back away to the door. Archie blinked at her, patently nonplussed.
"But, Emma—"
"I've got enough to go on," she blurted out, almost wrenching the door off its hinges in haste. "I'll—I'll be going now. Thanks for your help."
She only vaguely heard Archie call out his goodbye behind her as she fled the room.
A questionably-legal drive home, three glasses of water and an asprin later, Emma was laid out on the bed, feeling her heart rate gradually come down from its dizzying heights (in a quite literal sense).
Fuck.
That had been—well, complete trainwreck would have been too charitable. She'd gone there to help Henry with his problems, that he was facing right now. Instead she'd gotten entirely swept up in her own stupid, stupid issues from decades back, when she was now supposedly twenty-eight and, at least in theory, a fully functioning adult, as opposed to the comprehensive failure of a human being she felt like right now.
She had almost chastised herself into driving back to Dr Hopper's office and actually getting the file when her plans were brought to an immediate and shuddering halt by Regina's second hit.
"Seriously, Graham. I don't even have the file."
"Sorry, Emma, but attempted burglary—still a crime. Turn to your right, please."
She rolled her eyes and rotated sullenly to her right, not even blinking when the camera flashed.
Still. As frame-jobs went, this was singularly inept—and Emma had seen some bad ones in her time—so the expressions on her mugshots ended up more vaguely annoyed than genuinely concerned. Even so, given that the Mayor had her hands in everything—Graham's words—she hadn't seen an easy out until Mary Margaret showed up with Henryto bail her out.
Maybe more kind than thoughtless. Much, much more kind than thoughtless.
In any case, it was a hit. An ineffectual one, to be sure, but it counted. Well, Emma had failed at hit first—hit third, more like—but she still had hit hard and hit where it hurts up her sleeve.
It was one other thing she'd learned back in the group homes: it was all about the application. And she had more weapons in her armoury these days than mere fists and feet—as she demonstrated to Regina a few hours later.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Regina shrieked as Emma finished her handiwork on the honeycrisp apple tree, bearing down on Emma with impressive speed given the heels.
Emma dropped the chainsaw, smirking at a job well done. "Picking apples." A whole branch of them—yep, she'd definitely fulfilled the hit where it hurts criteria. Although, if the expression on Regina's face was indication, the woman was anything but intimidated—if anything, the shadow of a predatory smirk on Regina's face indicated that she relished the challenge, her chocolate-brown eyes burning, the lines of exposed neck and upper shoulder taut—
And Emma was not going down that particular road. Nope. Not here.
In any case, Emma wasn't entirely surprised to find that she'd been summarily booted from the bed-and-breakfast upon her return. She was marginally more surprised to see that her car had been booted as well; this was a move not exactly consistent with Regina's apparent goal to get her to leave town. Or maybe the woman was just trying to wind her up, prove a point?
"Miss Swan," Regina sighs over the phone when Emma asks her exactly that, adding a trilled laugh that makes every individual hair on Emma's neck stand on end. "Of course I was."
"What? That you're a pushy jerk of a Mayor?"
"I thought you could use a demonstration of my power. I'd be happy to continue, if you'd like."
Emma ground her teeth silently. "Yeah, well, piece of advice: booting the car? Not a great way to get me to leave."
"Oh, I'm aware. Am I right in saying your resolve to stay is only growing?"
She snorted, opening the door of her Bug to dump her leather jacket. "You have no idea."
"Well, then, I think it's time we made peace. Why don't you drive over to my office—" And Emma just had to slam the door with a little extra force, because seriously, "—or walk. Whatever suits you."
The upshot of the exchange was that by five minutes to five in the afternoon, Emma found herself in the Mayor's office, holding peace talks to conclude what had been a very, very strange war. She tried her best not to think about the desecrated tree just outside the window, instead focussing on the jet-black marble columns; the perfectly polished floor; the total lack of anything approaching colour; the way the room seemed to focus in on the sole desk and the high-backed chair behind it, almost throne-like—
She swallowed, raising her knees up so she could hold them loosely against her torso. She ignored the reproving glare Regina gave her as a result.
"I'd like to start by apologising, Miss Swan."
Not one, but two raised eyebrows. "What?"
"I just have to accept the reality that you want to be here."
Ten points for Mayor Obvious. "That's right. I do."
"And that you're here to take my son from me."
Emma widened her eyes briefly, startled. "Okay. Let's be clear. I have no intention from taking him from anyone." Jesus, she'd grown up in group homes—Regina may have been weapons-grade bitchy, but as far as Emma could tell, the kid had three meals a day, a room of his own and was attending a half-decent school; the works, as far as Emma was concerned.
"Then why are you here?" Regina asked, her voice softening—and for the first time, Emma saw what perhaps, maybe, possibly could be hesitation and... fear?
She felt bad about questioning Regina's love for her son already—although the expression of said love could use a bit of work. A lot of work. Well, maybe with this peace they were hammering out, they could work on that.
She sighed. "Look. I know I'm not a mother, I think that's pretty self-evident. But I did have him and I—look. I grew up in foster care, alright?" She frowned a little at Regina's complete lack of registered surprise, but continued anyway. "I just want to make sure his childhood is less shitty than mine was."
"Of course it's less shitty," Regina replied sleekly, enunciating the last two words with notable disgust. Or delight. Emma couldn't tell which. "He has a mother, one who has raised him since—"
"And I get that, but—"
"Please don't talk over the top of me, Miss Swan."
You shouldn't talk while others are talking, Emma.
Emma blinked. "Sorry."
"As I was saying," Regina continued smoothly, as if the interruption had never occurred. "Henry already has a mother. One who has raised him since he was a little boy."
"I get that. I told you, I'm not trying to take him away. I just want to make sure he's okay, and the more you try to push me out, the more I want to be here. Especially after seeing how... troubled he is."
Regina furrowed her brow. "You think he's troubled?"
Shit. Wrong word. It had been a long day, and Emma wasn't exactly careful at the best of times. "Well, he's in therapy," she said, quieter than she'd intended. She ran a hand through her hair, well aware that she was already dancing a tightrope and her balance was slipping. "I mean, he thinks everyone is a fairytale character."
"And you don't?"
No, of course I don't, she's completely delusional—
Another blink. "It's not about me. I mean, it's not like he actually saw any of this, he just read it in his book of his and became convinced it was all true." She sighed. "It sounds completely crazy, but—"
"You think I'm crazy?"
She jumped to her feet in an instant, wheeling around, and saw Henry standing in the doorway, his face pale, his eyes widening by the second, his lip beginning to tremble—
Her heart plummeted. Oh, no. No no no.
"Henry—I didn't mean—"
"You lied to me. You lied to me!"
He fled.
"Henry!" She spun around, panic already starting to seep through her veins—only to see the Mayor's calm, collected smirk, her chin raised, her posture unchanged.
And it hit her: she wasn't here to make peace at all.
"Your move," Regina drawled, and Emma ran.
She decided not to run straight to Henry. One because she didn't know where he actually was, two—and more importantly—because there was no way she could look him in the eye right now.
She didn't actually know where she was going. To seek solace in her old friend, the shot glass, maybe—fuck. How had she convinced herself for even a moment that she could be anything to Henry except the woman who gave her up for adoption—and a damn good thing too, given how she couldn't get that image out of her head, of Henry's face twisted with betrayal—
This was a mistake. This whole thing, coming here, barging into Henry's life like so: a mistake. One that needed to end, right now, for Henry's sake. She needed to get the fuck out of this town, get back to her life, remind herself why she'd given up Henry in the first place and hope that the reminder of her existence would convince his mom—his actual mom—to unwind a bit.
Not that Emma could count on that, not that she deserved to.
Apparently said mom had agreed, because by the time Emma returned half-dazed back to her car, the boot had been removed. Thankful that Regina had made at least this part easy, she got straight in, turned the ignition, and set off immediately.
She was less than a mile from the edge of town when she remembered: Mary Margaret's bail money. Shit. Skipping town without paying back that would be ironic, to say the least.
Half an hour later, she was knocking on the door of a simple second-floor wooden loft. Mary Margaret answered immediately, the surprise at seeing Emma open on her face as she did so.
"Hey. Just wanted to say thank you," Emma said—mumbled, really—holding out an envelope for Mary Margaret to collect. "And, um, pay you back the bail money."
Mary Margaret took the envelope, but continued to study Emma with pensive eyes, as if reading between the lines of Emma's exhausted and likely miserable face. It was a state which had Emma feeling distinctly uncomfortable but also... warm?
"You look like you need to talk."
Emma entered without a word, silently grateful for the company. Mary Margaret, for her part, was increasingly proving to be almost entirely kind and not thoughtless in the slightest, based on the fact that she too was making cocoa with—
"—cinnamon?" Had Emma driven into town with the words I take my cocoa with cinnamonstrapped to her head? Though in fairness, the other instance had been her birth son, and—and she was most definitely not going to think about that right now.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Mary Margaret said bashfully. "I should have asked; it's a little quirk of mine. Do you mind?"
"Not at all, thanks." She sipped the drink, savouring the unorthodox taste, before recalling something that had been needling away at her all day. "When you bailed me out, you said you trusted me. Why?"
"It's strange. Ever since you arrived here, I've had the oddest feeling like we've met before," Mary Margaret explained. Unconsciously, Emma ran a finger over her bracelet. "And, I know it's crazy—"
Emma winced. "Please don't."
Mary Margaret frowned momentarily—then realised what exactly she meant. "Oh—oh, I'm sorry, Emma, I wasn't aware—that was thoughtless of me, I shouldn't have—"
"It's fine," Emma said, in a blunt tone of voice which suggested that it was anything but. "Just—you aren't the first one to have made that mistake today."
"What do you—oh. Oh." Mary Margaret's otherwise-kindly face was a mixture of shock and horror and—Emma looked away. "Emma."
"It was an accident!" Emma blurted out, the dam walls that had been holding her misery back for the last hour bursting at last, something about the openness of Mary Margaret's expression which had provided the final breach. "I—god, I would never call him crazy, I just—I was stupid and..." Her words trailed off, and she rubbed her forehead. "I'm leaving. I shouldn't have come here in the first place."
The stunned look hasn't completely faded from Mary Margaret's face, but her voice remains sympathetic. "But you don't actually think he's crazy, do you?"
"No. Never." It's the firmest her voice has sounded all afternoon. "But now he thinks that I think that."
"Emma." Mary Margaret reached across, clasped one of Emma's hands in her own. "You made... you made a mistake, true, but one that's very easy to make. Without being in Henry's shoes, you couldn't know—"
"No, see, that's the thing." Emma mumbled, her eyes trained somewhere between the edge of the table and her own midriff. "I know exactly what Henry's going through right now, but I messed up anyway."
The thumb that had been drawing miniscule circles on the back of Emma's hand abruptly stopped. "Emma..."
"I mean, maybe not exactly, but—yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Emma said brusquely. "It was a long time ago now."
"Do you want to talk about it? If you're okay with that, of course," Mary Margaret added hastily, her cheeks colouring slightly.
"It's fine, I don't even remember most of it anyway." She sighed, before continuing—there was something about this woman which compelled her to lower all those walls she'd spent so long constructing around her. "Okay, long story short: when I was six, a friend showed me... some things. She gave me this bracelet, actually," Emma added, peeling back her shift to reveal the glimmering silver around her right wrist.
Mary Margaret grasped her arm, holding the bracelet up to the light. "It's beautiful."
Emma couldn't help but smile. "Yeah. Anyway, when I talked to other people about what I'd seen, no one believed me at all. Thought I was making it up at first, then—you can work out the rest."
Two hands this time, enclosing around one of her own. "I'm sorry."
"You said that."
"It's worth saying more than once." A brief pause, another pensive stare. "What happened to her?"
"My friend?" Emma swallowed, tensed. "I don't know. I haven't seen her in—god, a long time." Twenty-two years. "I don't even remember what she looks like. All I know is that she was called Regina."
Mary Margaret raised her eyebrows, which meant that one of them all but vanished into her hairline. "Like the Mayor?"
Emma chortled. "Yeah. A bit of a personality difference, though."
Yet, even so...
It's strange. Ever since you arrived here, I've had the oddest feeling like we've met before.
She drank the rest of her cocoa in one go.