Chapter 2

"That must be the pizza. Henry, will you get plates out?" Emma called over her shoulder as she went to get the door.

Mia's mouth watered at the thought of pizza. She hadn't had three meals a day since Trey was arrested and Dawn left. Even when her foster parents were there, food had sometimes been hard to come by.

Mia followed Henry into the kitchen to help set the table, more out of habit than anything else. It was highly unusual for the biological kid to do chores while she sat around. It was usually the other way around.

It took a few minutes from the time Emma went to answer the door until Mia started wondering what was taking so long. If it was just the pizza guy, Emma would have paid him already and been back with the pizza. What if it wasn't the pizza guy…what if it was a cop? Emma had certainly been in her room long enough to call the cops…

And okay, maybe Emma always kept her promises to her kid, but Mia wasn't her kid…Mia was no one to her. If Emma had the cops take Mia away, they would never even see each other again. It was very different from breaking a promise to her kid.

Mia felt panic rise in her throat. She moved as quietly as she could to the edge of the kitchen and peeked around the corner into the long entryway. From where she was standing, she could see Emma standing in the doorway with her back to Mia and a guy with dark hair standing just outside the door. She could just barely see the black leather jacket the guy was wearing instead of a uniform…he wasn't the pizza guy then, but he also wasn't a cop. He could be a social worker though...

Mia could hear Emma talking to the guy, but she couldn't make sense of anything they were saying. They might as well have been speaking a foreign language for how little she understood.

The guy almost sounded like he was hitting on Emma. Mia wondered if he was the boyfriend or maybe an ex for a second…until Emma threatened to punch him in the face.

It only got weirder from there. The guy said something to Emma about using her superpower.

Emma looked uncomfortable. Her shoulders tensed up and her whole body stiffened. "Just because you believe something is true does not make it real."

"Maybe…maybe not. I know you, Swan. You sense something's off. Go to that address. Take a chance. Then you'll want to talk. When you do, I'll be in Central Park by the entrance to the zoo. Don't do it for me or you. Do it for your family. They need your help."

Emma had a family? But Emma had said she was like Mia…

Mia was confused and a little hurt. She started to back away slowly. She thought she was being quiet, but Emma must have heard her because the woman looked over her shoulder.

Emma let out a frustrated sigh.

Mia froze mid-step. Her eyes widened in surprise and fear at being caught in the act eavesdropping. "I'm sorry!"

"Who's that?" The guy asked.

Emma did not look happy.

The woman moved the conversation into the hallway.

Mia stared numbly at the door that had slammed shut behind the woman.

There was no way Emma was going to let her stay now. The woman had taken her in for the weekend and Mia thanked her by spying on her…some thank you that was.

Mia didn't know why she couldn't have just trusted the woman. Well, actually she did. She had never met any adult she could trust…they all let her down eventually.

Not knowing what else to do, Mia went to get her backpack from the living room.

"What's going on? Where's my mom?" Henry asked.

"She's talking to some guy."

"What guy? Is it Walsh?"

"Walsh?"

"Her boyfriend," Henry reminded her.

"Uh, no, I don't think so."

"Oh." Henry sounded a little disappointed. "It's probably just the pizza guy then."

Mia bit her lower lip, not even knowing what to say about the weird scene she just witnessed. "I don't know…I guess..."

"What do you want to drink?" Henry asked as he poured a can of Coke into a glass.

"Nothing. I'm fine." And Mia didn't think she was going to be staying for dinner.

Henry gave her a strange look, but shrugged it off and sat down at his usual spot at the table.

"So does the rest of your family like this Walsh guy as much as you do?" Mia tried to sound casual.

Henry blinked. "It's just me and my mom. She's an orphan."

It was said so matter-of-factly that Mia didn't question the truth of it. But it raised other questions…like why the guy in the hall was so convinced Emma's family needed her help…

Mia knew it wasn't really any of her business. But a big part of the reason she had trusted Emma enough to go with her in the first place was that Emma seemed to know what it was like in the system. If Emma had a family, she would lose what little trust Mia had in her.

It hadn't been the pizza guy at the door. It had been the creep that showed up that morning and tried to kiss her, and he was holding a pizza box like it was his golden ticket in.

Emma listened to his crazy story that her nonexistent parents were in danger. Just from that it was clear he didn't know her at all.

It caught her off guard when he told her to use her superpower. It was the first thing he said that didn't sound completely crazy…at least not to her.

Emma could always tell when someone was lying to her. She'd been lied to enough growing up that she'd gotten really good at detecting lies. It was a useful skill in bond enforcement. It was even useful in parenting a twelve year old. Henry was a good kid, but he was still a kid. She always knew if he was lying about finishing his homework or how much candy he'd had. Emma had referred to her skill as a superpower to her kid whenever he questioned how she always knew. But how the hell would this random guy know that?

The thing was Emma could tell this guy wasn't lying…or at least he believed what he was saying.

Emma didn't believe a word of it. "Just because you believe something is true does not make it real."

Emma felt eyes on her and glanced over her shoulder, not really listening to the guy's response.

Sure enough Mia was standing there rooted to the spot, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Clearly she'd been eavesdropping.

Emma sighed. She couldn't really blame her. The poor kid was probably still worried Emma would call the cops or Social Services.

Okay, so Emma hadn't really promised anything beyond the weekend. She had reminded Mia that Social Services wasn't even open until Monday and promised that she wouldn't do anything to get the girl stuck in an emergency placement for the weekend. But she didn't really want to call Social Services…not even on Monday when they were open and the girl wouldn't get an emergency placement. She was bound and determined to help Mia. She just didn't know how she was going to do that. She wasn't really sure what to do with an underage runaway. She'd never been on this side before…she'd only ever been the runaway and she always went back to the system – until she met Neal anyway.

That was why she hadn't said anything more to Mia. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what she was going to do. It wasn't like Emma had planned for this.

"I'm sorry!" Mia cried out.

The high-pitched, desperate-sounding apology was a sharp contrast to the halfhearted apologies Henry had offered when he'd been caught doing the exact same thing.

It made Emma wonder how the Gilberts would have reacted if they had caught Mia eavesdropping. She opened her mouth to reassure the girl, but the guy in the hall spoke before she could.

"Who's that?"

Damn it, her stalker did not need to know about Mia. Her gut was telling her that he didn't want to hurt her, but she wasn't going to take any chances with a kid who wouldn't know what to do if he went after her. He was obviously unhinged.

Emma turned furiously. She shoved the guy back none-too-gently and then stepped into the hallway herself, letting the door slam shut behind her.

"That is none of your business," Emma said flatly.

A small smirk played across the guy's lips. "Henry got himself a girlfriend?"

Hearing her son's name from this creep's lips brought Emma's protective instincts to the surface…or maybe it was knowing he'd seen Mia…or both…

It was one thing to mess with her. Emma hadn't really been scared when it was just her…just angry. Now she was angry and scared…not that she'd let him see that.

All she wanted to do was wipe the smug smirk off the guy's face. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. She struggled to act calm when she was so completely on edge.

"How do you know my son's name?" Emma demanded coldly.

"I've already told you…I'm an old friend," the guy said infuriatingly.

"I'm not your friend."

"You don't remember-"

"And if you show up here again, you'll see just how unfriendly I can be," Emma cut him off in a low, dangerous voice. "Stay away from me and my son. Go now or I'll call the cops and you'll go to jail for assaulting me."

"Assault? It was a kiss."

"Is that a confession?"

The guy held up his hands in defeat. "I'll go. But you have to go to that address."

He started to walk away and then remembered he had her pizza. "Your pizza, Swan."

Emma eyed the box he held out for her to take warily. "What did you do to it?"

"I wouldn't dream of poisoning you, love." The guy opened the pizza box and helped himself to a slice, taking a bite in front of her as if to prove it wasn't poisoned.

"Even if you didn't do anything to it, you don't look like you've had all your shots. It's yours now. Take it to go," Emma said coolly.

She watched until he disappeared down the hallway. She only went back into her apartment once the sound of his footsteps had faded away completely. She locked the door behind her and slid the deadbolt into place.

Mia had finally moved from her spot, but she wasn't very far into the apartment and her backpack was slung over her shoulders like she thought she was going somewhere. She wasn't.

Henry was sitting at his usual place at the kitchen table slurping Coke from a large glass. He frowned when Emma came in empty-handed. "Where's the pizza?"

Emma glanced at Mia, but the girl wouldn't look at her. She was surprised the girl hadn't said anything to Henry. "That wasn't the pizza guy. I'm going to call them to find out what's taking so long. You guys should have time for another game."

Mia's eyes shot up to Emma's. "Another game? You mean…you're not kicking me out?"

Emma held her gaze. "I'm not."

Mia looked surprised.

Henry looked from Mia to Emma, confusion written all over his face. "What happened?" And then he looked back at Mia in complete bewilderment. "What did you do?"

It was strange to see two kids who were so close in age and yet came from two very different worlds. There was Mia who couldn't fathom a world where she did something wrong, no matter how minor the offense, and was given another chance…and then there was Henry who couldn't imagine anything he – or even Mia – could do that would be bad enough for Emma to just kick him – or Mia - out. Even though Emma had given her son the world where he felt safe, she had come from the same world as Mia…and it was a cold, cruel world.

"Nothing," Emma lied. "Why don't you go set the game up? I'm going to show Mia where she can put her stuff so she doesn't have to keep carrying her backpack around everywhere."

Emma kept her tone light, but Mia still looked at her with the same expression Henry had when she took away his electronics as punishment for skipping school to go to the arcade…only Mia hadn't done anything that terrible and Emma wasn't trying to punish her. Emma just wasn't taking any chances on the girl leaving…and there was no chance Mia would leave without her backpack…not when everything she owned was in it.

Emma saw a spark of defiance in the girl's hazel eyes and thought for a second she was going to argue, but the girl ended up grudgingly following her.

Mia came to a complete stop in the doorway. "But this is your room…"

"It's a two bedroom apartment," Emma said. "I'll take the couch."

It would be a lot harder for Mia to take off in the middle of the night if Emma was on the couch in the living room and the girl had to get by her to get to the door. Emma's apartment was in a newer high-rise building so going out the window wouldn't really be an option for her unless she was planning to scale the building.

Mia seemed to realize that much because this time she did argue. "It's your apartment. I'll take the couch."

"It is my apartment," Emma agreed. "And I want you to take the bed."

The girl's thin shoulders slumped in defeat as she followed Emma all the way into the master bedroom. She reluctantly set her backpack down on the floor by Emma's bed.

Emma showed Mia where she could find clean towels in the attached master bathroom and dug an extra toothbrush out from the cabinet under the sink.

"Do you want to change into pajamas or something more comfortable?" Emma asked.

Henry was already in a t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and Emma was going to change into something more comfortable after the pizza place brought her a new pizza.

"No," Mia said a little too quickly.

Emma gave her a knowing look…it would be harder for the girl to run off in pajamas. But the girl wouldn't be running anywhere without her backpack so it was a moot point.

"Whenever you're ready to change, t-shirts are in the top drawer of my dresser. You're welcome to borrow one if you don't have anything to sleep in," Emma said carefully.

"Thanks," Mia said quietly.

Now that Mia was somewhat settled, Emma knew they had a few other things they needed to settle.

"So how much of that conversation did you hear?" Emma asked bluntly.

Emma knew she didn't need to specify which conversation she was referring to. Mia blushed.

"I'm sorry," Mia apologized again.

"I'm not mad," Emma assured her. "And I'm not looking for an apology. I'm looking for an answer."

"Um…it was around the time you called that guy a crazy person or a liar…"

"That's what he is - a crazy person," Emma told her.

"I thought you might have called the cops even though you said you wouldn't," Mia admitted.

"Here's the thing…I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a liar," Emma started.

Mia raised her eyebrows. "You just lied to your kid. You told him nothing happened."

Crap, Emma really hadn't expected the girl to throw that in her face.

Mia was clearly looking for any reason not to trust her…and Emma had just given her one.

Emma tried to justify it. "That was just to protect him. I don't want him to worry about the crazy guy. That's my job."

"Right," Mia said slowly. "And you don't want me to worry about the cops or Social Services."

Once trust was broken, Emma knew how hard it was to get it back. But that wasn't going to stop her from trying…

"Look, I know there's nothing I can say that will stop you from worrying about that. But I am going to help you."

"How?" Mia looked – and sounded – extremely skeptical.

Emma had been thinking about that and so far she had only come up with one idea. "Well, I'm pretty good at finding people. I can find your birth parents."

"I'm not interested. They didn't want me when I was born. Why would they want me now?" Mia said bitterly.

Emma understood where all of that bitterness was coming from...maybe a little too well. Hell, she was still bitter and she was thirty. It had been over a decade since she was in the system. Mia was just a kid who was still stuck bouncing around in the system. It wasn't uncommon for foster kids to feel like they wouldn't be in their current situation if their birth parents hadn't given them up…like their birth parents were the reason for everything bad that happened to them in the screwed up system.

"They might not," Emma acknowledged. It might have sounded harsh, but she knew the girl wouldn't appreciate it if she sugarcoated it for her. "But you don't know why they gave you up. Maybe they gave you up because they didn't think they could take care of you then…maybe that's changed in the last – how old are you, kid…thirteen?"

Mia's eyes widened ever so slightly. "Yeah, thirteen."

Emma knew the girl was lying the second she opened her mouth. And it wasn't like she would tell Emma she was younger than she really was - that wouldn't help her case that she could take care of herself. She must be twelve then…the same age as Henry.

But Emma decided to play along with the lie for now. "A lot can change in thirteen years. It's worth a shot."

"And if nothing's changed?" Mia questioned stiffly.

"I've spent a lot of time with a lot of kids like you, and all of them – all of us – want to know where we came from," Emma said softly.

"My last name…it's Cassidy," Mia said after several seconds. "You need that to find my birth parents, right?"

The girl's last name – Neal's last name – threw Emma off her game a little. It didn't help that the girl kind of looked like her son with Neal. They had the same coloring…brown hair and hazel eyes.

Emma wouldn't put cheating past the bastard…she wouldn't put much of anything past Neal. But the math didn't compute…they had been together almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week until she was arrested for his crime. Any other children he had running around would be younger than Henry.

Emma was almost positive Mia wasn't younger than Henry. The girl looked older. Part of that could be the way she was dressed, but it was more than that. Her son's face was still soft and rounded – a baby face. Mia's face was more angular with sharper lines…less baby fat. And Mia's eyes may have been the same color as Henry's, but there was a weariness in them that Emma never wanted to see in her son's…a weariness that no twelve year old - no kid - should have.

Emma was studying the girl closer than ever before. "I need to know how old you are, too. We both know you're not thirteen."

"Almost thirteen," Mia admitted. "I'll be thirteen in August."

August…that was when Henry was born. There was no way the girl could be Neal's then. The timeline didn't work. Emma let out a small, relieved sigh.

"Where were you born?" Emma asked.

"Boston," Mia answered.

Emma smiled at her. "That'll help. Why don't you go play another game with Henry? I'm going to order another pizza."

Mia looked a little taken aback. "Wait, that's it?"

"Yeah, for now."

Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this and especially anyone who reviewed. I'm so glad you seem to like my take on this idea so far.

Some of the dialogue between Emma and Hook was taken directly from S3E12.

The rest of this is just a little bit of additional explanation of the information Mia gave Emma. You won't miss out on anything important if you don't read it and the next chapter will still make sense to you.

I'm definitely not an expert on the foster care system, but I did some research for the integrity of this story. From what I read, kids who are given up and are not adopted are given the last name of either the birth mother or the birth father if it is known. As you saw, the last name Cassidy definitely got Emma's attention, but it wasn't a dead giveaway like Swan would've been.

As we know, Henry – and by extension his twin – were born in Arizona, but in S3E09 Gold tells Regina that a baby boy from Phoenix was placed with a family nearby in Boston and the adoption fell through. Mia wasn't lying to Emma…she really doesn't know she was born in Arizona…her earliest memories are of Boston.

I'm not going to drag Emma finding the truth out too terribly long, but I didn't want it to be so obvious that she'd have to be an idiot to not realize it immediately. I don't think she's an idiot at all and don't want to make her look like one so she's going to have to work with some bad information.

Thanks for reading!