Well hello there friends! :D

How're you all doing? :)

Okay so I'm not exactly sure how many people will receive a notification for this – if any at all, but I thought I'd at least risk it here than make a brand new story. I've been thinking for a while to do a sort-of sequel to 'Complicated Family Issues' - or at least a continuation of it - and I guess I'm here to see if you guys were interested in it? I kinda have a rather messy plan of what I want to do with it and where I could take it but I would love to hear if you guys have anything you want to see!

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw this idea out into the fanfiction world and see how it's received, and as a teaser (maybe?) I've put a little prologue/continuation piece here. Anywho, I hope you guys check it out and like what you read!

I look forward to hearing from you! :)

Alas, I do not own OUAT.

When Emma Swan was ten years old she drew up a plan for her life.

By no means was she an artist though, and what looked like a masterpiece in her head turned out to be a masterful mess chock full of stick figures, misspelled words and odd colour choices. To the adult eye, it was a bunch of nonsense scribbled on a crumpled page but to Emma, it was her lifeline. She was more self-aware than other kids her age, her world already broken from the things she had endured in her young life. Bouncing around from foster home to foster home, facing rejection on a frequent basis, having her hopes built only to come crashing down in sensational fashion were a staple of her daily life, and every day she spent in the system was another day a part of her heart hardened.

So when she was ten she decided to design a plan; something she could hold onto and keep her on track even when everything she had seen and heard reeked of sheer hopelessness. Of course there were things like 'Become President' and 'Go into Outer Space' and 'Buy a Time Machine' in this particular plan but alongside her lopsided attempts at planets and rockets and cars were real goals and ideas – get a job, have a nice house in a nice neighbourhood, get married, have kids. Usual things that, perhaps to other kids, seemed perfectly possible but for Emma, were things that weren't exactly available to her.

But amidst all the mess and the hopes of dreams of being a princess and owning a pony – yes, she really did wish for that - in the bottom right-hand corner was the ultimate aim: 'Find my Mommy and Daddy'. That was her drive; she was going to survive no matter what, pave her own way, blaze her own trail, and get some answers because out of everything, why she was given up was something that would haunt her every single day until she found out the truth. She had to know. Even just to see them and spot familiarities and differences between them - find out who she was more like, whose chin she had, or eyes, or stubborn nature and tact, or spunk. Just to know.

Emma felt that without knowing them, she'd never really feel complete.

Now, almost twenty years later, Emma Swan finally had her answers.

But that didn't mean that, all of a sudden, everything snapped into its rightful place and her life made sense and she could ride off into the sunset with a big smile on her face. No. In actuality, it meant that things were going to be a hell of a lot more complicated from there on out.

In fact, if there was an option she could choose that best described her family situation it would be: It's Complicated.

And though things had calmed down somewhat, Emma just knew that it wouldn't be for long. Little did she realize how messy things were going to get.

But then again, how much more complicated could her familial issues get?

Right?