"How the hell did they get into town? The barrier is still up." Regina paced the small shop, dodging the eccentric pieces that littered the area. "Now that they're inside the city limits, can we even get them out? People will come looking for them if they don't return. A missing detective will not go unnoticed."

"Nor will a world renowned medical examiner, I would imagine." Gold turned his laptop screen around to reveal a search page littered with references to Doctor Maura Isles, chief medical examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The mayor scanned over the links with disdain and panic. "Shit."

"Knee deep in it, I'd say," Leroy cut in, pushing his way up to the counter that stood between the small group assembled and Gold. "Jim's towing the car right now, and I've got the rest of boys scouting out there to make sure no one else managed to get in, but who knows? I didn't think anyone could get in or out of here."

"They can't," Regina spat back impatiently, "which is why this is a problem."

"It was bound to happen sooner or later," David said with a sigh. "Things were going too smoothly around here for it stay that way for long."

Regina glanced over to Mary Margaret. "And this is what you consider charming?"

"Okay, let's not start bickering amongst ourselves." The pixie haired woman said with her hands raised in a show of surrender. "It won't get us anywhere, and, if these two women really are from Boston…"

"Which they are," Gold cut in, pointing back to his computer screen. "It would seem our new detective friend is also rather well known."

Hook leaned in to look over the article pulled up on the screen. "Says here she arrested some bloke known as the Surgeon 'again'." He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Again? She can't be very good at what she does if she let him get away the first time, now can she?"

"Regardless, we can't take a chance." Regina crossed her arms and looked around the shop. "We need to keep them believing this is a normal little town in Maine until we can get them out of here."

"Well, it can't be that hard, can it?" Mary Margaret shrugged, gesturing around the room with a hand. "It's not as though we look like storybook characters, and it isn't as though we act any differently than anyone else. For all intents and purposes, we are a normal small town in Maine."

"Except we aren't," Regna countered. "All it takes is one magical mishap or one new villain of the week to show up, and there's no chance we'll be able to keep those two thinking everything is perfectly normal. The longer they remain here, the more susceptible to being discovered we become. I can't speak for you, but I, for one, would rather not end up another United States cover-up."

"You know, they probably have family back in Boston," David commented, thinking aloud as he pieced something together that had been nagging at him since they all reconvened at the shop. "They probably are going to want to contact them, and, if they do, then even more people will know about us."

"They can try, but they'll find our cell towers are down and, oddly, the long distance service isn't working." Gold gave Regina a knowing look. "I understand the mayor has her best people working on that."

"Yes, of course," Regina said with a nod and a dismissive wave of her hand. "We need a solid plan."

"Well, I don't think they should be alone." Leroy leaned on the counter, glancing up at the assembled mass. "That tall one strikes me as the type to go nosing around where she don't belong."

"You would know," the mayor snorted. "He's right, however. They can't be left alone. We need to keep someone with them all times, if they aren't in their rooms at the inn."

"I can speak with Belle and have her be the town's welcome guide." Gold offered.

"That will work for a few hours, but not the entire time they're here… however long that is." Regina sighed. "It's going to have to be covert. We'll need people to stake them out, and others to regularly check on them without it seeming like we're keeping tabs. We can't allow them to become too suspicious."

"Well, maybe I could talk them into speaking with the children at the school? The students have never met a detective or a doctor that wasn't Whale." Mary Margaret winced. "That would probably take up most of a day. Emma could introduce us as her roommates."

"That could work," David nodded. "I could also probably pull the detective away to ask her about how Boston PD does things. You know, use the excuse that we want to make our office more efficient?"

"I suppose I could likely pull the doctor into City Hall to ask her about some of these articles on sociological studies it seems she's done." Regina flipped through the search results on Maura's various papers. "If she speaks anything like she writes, that should take days."

"In the meantime, I'll join Jim at his shop to examine their vehicle," Gold offered with a nod. "We'll need to make certain magic wasn't involved in the car breaking down."

"And the boys and I will work out a schedule for the stakeouts. It shouldn't be hard with seven of us. We can take turns." Leroy pushed off the counter and straightened his vest. "Do you want us to tell the rest of the town what's going on?"

"We'll have to," Mary Margaret said with a worried note in her voice.

"Be quick about it, and make sure those women are nowhere around when you start explaining the situation." Regina rubbed her index and middle finger across her forehead as she worked on reducing the building tension behind her eyes. "I really thought we might get a small moment's peace after Pan died."

"Considering what could be happening right now, I would consider this a break," Gold replied with a smirk. "We're not fighting our inner demons while trying to save Henry. I'd call that a marked improvement."

Hook stepped in before the mayor could find a retort. "What can I do?"

"Stay at the docks. If anyone was going to give away that we're not a normal town, it's you." Regina ran an eye over his attire. "You look like you walked out of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie."

"I'm capable of changing, your majesty," the pirate replied with a sneer.

"Really?" Regina raised a mocking eyebrow. "I assumed the filth you're covered in had caused the leather to adhere to your skin."

Killian stepped forward, raising his hook at the woman. "I don't know what your problem…"

"We really don't have time for this right now," David said as he moved between them. "Killian, go find a change of clothes, and, Regina, why don't you go see how Emma's doing with our guests?"

"Thanks for the ride," Jane said as she glanced around them while Emma drove the cruiser behind Jimmy's wrecker.

"No problem. I figured it'd be a little cramped with three of you the cab of Jim's truck." The blonde glanced into the rearview to see Maura happily watching the scenery. Silence in the car, she'd learned quickly, was painfully uncomfortable, so she'd tried to fill it with small talk. Maura seemed amicable, but Jane was distant enough for Emma to get the hint.

She'd known plenty of cops in her time, and she was pretty sure she knew what this cop was thinking. Something was off, and her instincts said she needed to figure out what it was. As far as Emma was concerned, her only job until otherwise told was to distract both women until Regina and the others could understand how the two women make it past the barrier and how to get them back out, which was why the young blonde was doing everything she could to start up some kind of friendly relationship.

"So, where are you both from?" She internally sighed. The next thing out of her mouth was probably going to be 'what's your sign' if this kept going downhill as quickly as if felt.

"Boston. I born and raised there," Jane answered with a nod. "What about you? You originally from Storybrooke?"

Emma couldn't help herself. She snorted, which gained her narrowed eyes from the detective and the full rapt attention of the passenger in the back of the car. "I don't know, actually, but I doubt it." She gave her best nonchalant shrug. "I'm a foster baby. My folks left me on the side of the road somewhere around here when I was a newborn, and I was never adopted. Spent my life bouncing around in the system until I was a teenager."

"Runaway?" The brunette asked with honest curiosity.

"Something like that," Emma said with sad smirk. "That's all water now, though, you know?"

Jane nodded. "Do you know who your parents are?"

"Jane, that's not something that's okay just to ask a person," Maura cut in harshly, which surprised the sheriff. The older woman didn't strike her as the harsh type. "I… I was adopted, myself," Maura explained somewhat sheepishly. "I understand that sometimes one simply doesn't know. One has to trust that their parents were doing what was best."

"Oh," Emma replied, unsure of where to go with this conversation. "Yeah, I get that. That's why I gave Henry up for adoption." As soon as the words were out of her mouth she wanted to kick herself. They didn't need to know that.

"You have a son? Was it an open adoption?" Maura's curious eyes widened with interest.

"No, not really. In fact, I didn't know anything about him until he was eleven." Emma made a mental note of everything she was about to say because she'd need to tell Regina, and then she'd need to remember to duck and roll from Regina's wrath. "I gave Henry up because I was too young to really take care of him. I wanted to give him his best chance, and I was okay with what I did because, well, you kind of have to be when you do something like that, but he wasn't. He did a lot of research and somehow figured out who I was and were I was. One night, he snuck out of his house and used the credit card he stole from his teacher's bag to buy a bus ticket to come see me."

"Seriously?" Jane's eyes widened. "I don't whether to be impressed by that or worried he did that at the age of eleven."

"He's a smart boy," Emma replied with a proud smirk. "Anyway, he did find me, and I brought him back home that same night, much to his disappointment. He and his mom were having… issues, and I think he thought I could make it better somehow."

"Children often find illogical ways of fixing their perceived issues when they're upset with parental controls," Maura offered.

"Yeah, well, I don't think Regina was doing much more than forcing him to do his homework and go to bed on time," Emma replied, though internally she was ticking off all the ways that remark wasn't really true. Thinking on it, the whole lot of her family had gone through much in a short amount of time.

"Regina?" Jane shook her head in confusion. "The mayor?"

"Yeah," Emma chuckled. "Come to find out, the kid's mom is the mayor of this town. Crazy, right?"

The detective pursed her lips in thought. "So how did you end up as the sheriff?"

"Oh, well, after Henry found me, I decided to stick around. His teacher ended up my roommate, and I picked up a job as a deputy for the sheriff at the time. He… well, he passed away." The blonde grimaced at the memory, swallowing down the lump to keep the conversation going. "It was a heart attack. We didn't see it coming, but the position of sheriff had to be filled. We eventually had an election, and the town voted me in, and here I am."

"So your son now has both of his mothers in the same town?" Maura tilted her head in thought. "Does that get complicated?"

Emma shrugged. "It was definitely complicated at first, but I respect that Regina raised him, and she did an amazing job. She respects that, without me, Henry wouldn't be here. I think we've found a middle ground."

Maura nodded. "Henry is a very lucky boy."

"I think I'm pretty lucky he found me and brought me out here. He's a good kid." The blonde glanced into the rearview mirror to catch the older woman's eye. "Regina and I are lucky he's in our lives." Shaking away the sappiness of the moment, Emma turned back to the road. "Anyway, after we get your car situated at Jimmy's, would you like for me to drop you off at Granny's? You two can grab some rooms, clean up, and get something to eat. I bet you're starving."

Eyes darkly determined and face gravely somber, Jane pointed to fingers at Emma and replied in an utterly serious voice, "I. Am. Starving."

As always, thank you for reading. If you've made it this far, I'm guessing you're good with the characterizations, which absolutely thrills me. I worry that I've lost my touch for season1/season2 Jane and Maura. Thanks again, and thank you for the reviews. They're making my day. :-)