Chapter Two

Apparently for Regina, "pantsuit" was code for a pair of expensive-looking slacks and a cream-colored blouse. The ensemble looked like something any ordinary mortal would wear to work, and Regina RELAXED in that? Emma wagered she wouldn't find a single sweatshirt if she searched Regina's entire closet. The sudden image of Regina at the gym in pencil skirt and high heels made her snort.

"Sheriff, is – "

"Emma."

Regina sighed. "This correcting is getting old, EMMA. Is something amusing?"

"No, uh, I just thought of something. Nothing to do with you," Emma lied. Hey, just because she could tell a lie, it didn't mean she never told them herself.

"Mmm," Regina said suspiciously. She tugged at one of the strings of her apron. Just because she put on three hundred dollars of clothing when she got home, that didn't mean Regina was stupid enough to cook dinner without some kind of protection. Emma wondered what it said on the front. Kneel Before the Cook?

"Why don't you think of ways to amuse yourself somewhere else?" Regina added, still not bothering to turn and face Emma.

"I did. That's why I came here," Emma said, grinning.

Regina muttered something under her breath. Apparently Emma wasn't worth being insulted out loud.

"So what's your secret?" Emma asked.

"I'm madly in love with you."

Emma began coughing violently.

Regina chuckled. "See, I can amuse myself too," she jeered.

"Ha-ha," Emma grumbled. "No, I mean what products do you use?"

"Products?" Regina asked, sounding puzzled for once.

"Skin care products," Emma elaborated. "I saw those pictures in the hallway." Pictures of Henry at a younger age, including one of him as a toddler that had clenched her heart in a vice. "You don't look a day older than you did when Henry was still in diapers."

Regina didn't respond at first. "Wouldn't you like to know?" she said finally. "With your rough-and-tumble lifestyle, you'll be showing crow's-feet before you're forty."

"Rough and tumble?"

"Bail bonds, Emma. It's a dangerous job, isn't it? Chasing wanted felons who have nothing to lose? No backup? I bet you've had a broken bone or two."

Five, not that Emma felt like sharing that. "We can't all have it easy like you, Regina, sitting behind a desk all day. Or whatever the hell it was you did before you got elected. You look like a corporate law type."

Regina finally bothered to turn around. "For your information, not that it's your business, I was a housewife."

Emma blinked. "You were married?"

"You sound surprised."

"I'm surprised there's a man out there who you couldn't scare off."

Regina's eyes grew dark and cold. "My husband left me, SHERIFF. He disappeared. He could be dead for all I know. So go on, have a laugh at my expense."

Emma managed not to cringe. She hadn't realized she was making light of a sore subject. "Sorry, I didn't know."

"Hmph. Well, he was the mayor before me. So I took over his job on a temporary basis, and discovered I liked it. End of story."

Emma suddenly realized she had just learned more about Regina's past in two minutes than she had in the two months prior. "I've never been married."

"Will wonders never cease," Regina said, who by now had turned back to the stove.

Emma bristled.

"And yes, I know. Don't forget, I've read your file."

"You practically PUBLISHED my file."

Regina shrugged. "Negative advertising works. Ask any politician."

"Just not this time," Emma pointed out.

The mayor surprised her by chuckling. "You accused – without evidence, mind you – the town's wealthiest citizen of setting off some kind of booby trap in City Hall that could have killed you or I," Regina said. "That's about as negative as you can get."

Emma decided not to let Regina in on the secret that Mr. Gold had manipulated her into doing so. One, she thought it was safer if Regina thought Gold had a grudge against her. Two, it was DEFINITELY safer if Regina didn't know about Emma owing him a "favor". And three, it was embarrassing. "Did you believe what I said at the debate?"

"Yes," Regina said immediately. "You wouldn't have said it if you weren't sure, he didn't deny it like an innocent man would have, and it's something he would stoop to." She paused and turned her head slightly. "I trust you more than I trust him. Which isn't saying much."

Maybe not, but it still shocked Emma that Regina would say it out loud. "Well, um, the same goes for you, I guess."

Regina seemed to be on the edge of saying something more, but she turned away instead.

One other thing Emma didn't feel like sharing – dinner was starting to smell goddamn delicious. While Emma always burned her Pop-Tarts. Finding things that Regina was better at definitely sucked.

"Can you believe there's no beer in that house?" Emma asked, her voice muffled by the fact that she was kneeling in front of the open refrigerator. She reached behind a Tupperware container and gave a happy sigh as she pulled out a six-pack with one empty space in the carton. "I watched Regina knock back two whole glasses of wine without slurring a single word, but I guess beer is too blue-collar for Madame Mayor."

"You seem upset," Mary said as Emma popped the cap off one of the bottles against her kitchen counter.

Emma sighed. "Stuffed is more like it. Would you have believed Regina can cook?"

"Well, she's a single mother, I'd imagine that's something she would need to know."

"Yeah, but she cooks REALLY well. She made spaghetti, and this homemade tomato sauce . . . " Emma shook her head. "It was delicious, and me? I once melted a saucepan."

Mary blinked. "How could you melt – Emma, this is exactly what I warned you about. She wants you to feel like you can't measure up to her."

"She's winning," Emma muttered. "My job tonight was to fill a dishwasher. Something even an illegal immigrant who doesn't speak English can do."

"Yes, but Henry – you think HE cared? I'm guessing he never took his eyes off you throughout dinner."

Emma finally smiled. "Pretty much, yeah. He had a thousand things to say. What he saw in the schoolyard today, what he read about in class, what was on television tonight."

Whereas Regina might as well have not been there. Emma's good humor vanished as quickly as it appeared. No wonder she drank that much wine. She had sat quietly at the table while her son – their son acted like she didn't exist. Emma wondered when the last time he talked about school with her was. Months? Years?

Of course Regina despised her. If the positions were reversed, Emma would despise Regina too.

Emma suddenly wondered if this was the real source of Regina's determination to run her out of town. Regina kept accusing her of wanting to take Henry away from her, and Emma kept telling her she was being paranoid. Only, Regina was losing Henry to her anyway. Emma may not have had physical custody, but she was gaining custody of his heart.

"Uh oh, I know that look," Mary said.

"What look?" Emma said defensively.

"That look you get when you're thinking of doing something noble and self-sacrificing, like at the debate," Mary replied. "Don't you go feeling sorry for Regina now."

"I don't!" Emma retorted. "For HER? Please. Maybe, MAYBE just a little, but that's it."

Mary just looked at her until it dawned on Emma that she had admitted it without meaning to. "I'm not giving up on my son, if that's what you're worried about."

"Just don't let Regina see how you feel. She'll capitalize in an instant, she'll let a few crocodile tears fall, and you'll be offering to leave Storybrooke that very minute."

"I don't feel bad for her when we're together," Emma assured her. "She pisses me off too much. Although I do manage to put my foot in my mouth around her. I made a joke about how she scared men off, and she thought I was taunting her over her ex-husband abandoning her."

"Regina can be very thin-skin . . . her ex-husband?"

"Yeah, I never would have guessed she was married once."

Mary furrowed her brow. "I don't – remember her having a husband."

Emma shrugged. "Said he was the mayor before her."

"Oh, that must be it," Mary said. "I didn't know her then. As far back as I remember, she's been the mayor, but I didn't pay much attention to politics when I was younger."

"What DID you do when you were younger?" Emma asked, curious.

Mary paused. "Oh, this and that. Nothing exciting. I've lived a very sheltered life."

This must be where Henry got the idea that people in town had no memories of their past. Mary didn't look like she'd ever been a hellraiser. She didn't even look like a heckraiser. Emma couldn't believe an entire town could simply not NOTICE they couldn't remember their childhood.

Remember . . .

"Mary, what time is it?"

"Um, 9:15, I think."

"Crap," Emma said. "I missed '2 Broke Girls'."

Regina had better have On Demand.

Historically Emma had a pretty good alarm system. She got up when the sun came through the window and hit her directly in the eyes. Since moving to Storybrooke, more often than not it was a gentle shake from Mary Margaret, or perhaps the smell of coffee she was brewing.

On Tuesday morning, Regina pounded on her door.

Emma opened one eye. It was still dark outside. She glanced at the clock. The alarm hadn't gone off, probably because she'd set it for an hour from then. She groaned. "What?"

"I warned you, Emma. You get up when we get up." Emma could visualize Regina's smarmy look on the other side of the closed door.

"What am I, Private Benjamin?" Emma grumbled.

"This is what single mothers do, Ms. Swan. They get up at the crack of dawn so they can make sure their children are ready to face the world."

Twist that knife, Regina, like you haven't twisted it eight hundred times already.

"I've already showered. I would suggest you hurry, Emma. Fortunately there shouldn't be much hot water left anyway."

Emma clutched at the air above her, imagining it was Regina's neck.

"Do you always get up that early?" Emma asked, rubbing her eyes yet again as she walked Henry to school. Regina had wanted the three of them to drive there together, but Henry had "helpfully" pointed out that he always walked alone, and Emma had "reminded" Regina that they weren't supposed to deviate from the norm. Regina, who hadn't even bothered with coffee because Terminators never got tired, had made a noise like an angry housecat and left separately.

"Yeah," Henry said. "School starts pretty early. Wasn't your school like that?"

Emma had never been punctual at her schools, all eleven of them. The foster system and the homes they chose had sucked at keeping a schedule. Eventually by high school she had stopped caring, which might have contributed to the whole "giving birth in prison" thing. "Things were different back then," she said evasively, only realizing after she spoke how old that made her sound.

"What do you think so far?"

"Of what?"

"What I live with."

Emma hesitated. "It's a little too soon for me to say."

"Tonight is worse," Henry muttered. "Piano lessons every Tuesday and Thursday."

Ugh. Not something she regretted missing as a child. "So you're taking classes with older kids."

Henry nodded, looking doleful.

"I'm proud of you. You're really smart to be doing something like that."

"I guess," Henry said. "In my old classes the other kids didn't like that I was always the one getting called on. But now it happens in my new classes, and the older students don't like it either."

Yikes. But it wasn't like she could tell him to dumb it down a little in class. He belonged in a good college someday. Most parents didn't dream of their child becoming a bail bondsman one day. Even her nonexistent parents probably wouldn't have dreamed of that.

Before she could follow up, though, Henry went on to say, "So, about Operation Cobra."

Emma would rather have talked more about school, but evidently Henry would not.

"We need to think of ways to break up Prince Charming's marriage so he can get back together with Snow White."

"Uh, what?" Emma asked blankly. "You want to break up David and Kathryn?" Mary was probably the one to talk to on that subject.

"Duh, David and Ms. Blanchard belong together. They can't be your parents otherwise."

Biologically speaking, they couldn't be her parents at all, but Emma had learned there was little use pointing it out. "That wouldn't be right, Henry. We need to let David work out who he wants to be with on his own." Even if sometimes she wanted to lock David and Mary in a holding cell together for twenty-four hours and let them hash it out.

"There's got to be ways to make Kathryn look bad. Don't police officers have files on people?"

Emma stopped. "First of all, yes, but only on criminals. And second, even if she did have a file, it wouldn't be right to use it against her. I'm the town sheriff, not J. Edgar Hoover."

"Who?"

"Imagine if Mr. Gold ran the U.S. government."

"Oh. Yeah, that wouldn't be good."

That reminded her. "Henry, when I was running for Sheriff, you told me that Gold was worse than your mother. I'm inclined to agree now, but why? From your point of view, how could he be worse if she's the Evil Queen, the one who cast the curse?"

Henry didn't answer.

"He's in the Book, right? Who is he in the Book?"

"I'm not totally sure," Henry finally said. "I thought he might have been King Midas, because he has so much money and his name is Gold. But Midas was Abigail's father, and Abigail is Kathryn, and I don't think Gold and Kathryn are related."

Emma shuddered at the thought.

"I have a new theory," Henry continued, "but it's from a book, not THE Book."

"Okay, good, that's good, you can't always rely on one source of information," Emma said. "What did it say?"

"It was a regular old book of fairy tales, and it mentioned Rumplestiltskin. You know, straw into gold?"

"Right," Emma said slowly. As she recalled, the girl in that story had to give Rumplestiltskin . . . her unborn child.

Okay, that was creepy.

"Plus," Henry added, "it says how Rumplestiltskin died. It says he got so mad that he stomped on the floor really hard, and he made a hole in the floor and got stuck. When he tried to pull his foot out, he tore his own leg off instead."

"And Mr. Gold walks with a limp," Emma realized.

Henry nodded. "THE Book talks about Rumplestiltskin too. He did a LOT of really bad things, until Snow White and Prince Charming locked him in a dungeon." He paused. "If it IS him, and you don't want to give him his memories back, maybe I'd be all right with that."

Sometimes, Emma thought, it was really easy to forget this was all fantasy.

To be continued . . .