Thank you again, to all of my awesome readers. I am sorry that the wait was so long for this one. I rewrote 3 times. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that this week may be a little harder to update for me. My schedule for this week is horrendous, but it could also result in a lot of bored sitting around. So I'm either going to have a lot of time to write, or none at all. Thank you for all of the fabulous reviews. It really helps to keep the motivation going. I tried to incorporate some suggestions in this chapter. So please enjoy.

Chapter 5 – Snow Storm

I stood by the window holding my baby brother in my arms. I was enjoying watching the snow lightly fall over the town of Storybrooke. I had been receiving the weather alerts all morning, but I never really took the time to actually read the forecast. But I had heard that we were supposed to get a couple of inches of snow this afternoon. I was holding Neal so that he could see the snow fall as well, but he seemed more content with grabbing and yanking my hair. And can I just say that little guy had quite a grip.

When the pizza arrived, we sat around the table exchanging stories of the short time that JC and I were together in the Cooper house. It wasn't all bad. Like the time that I let JC talk me into trying out for the high school musical. Let's face I'm not an actor, never was, singing and dancing wasn't really my thing..

"You should have seen the look of horror on Emma's face when they told her that she had to dance and sing during the audition." I rolled my eyes at him and whacked him in the chest with the back of my hand.

"Oh, I can just imagine," David said with a chuckle. I looked over to Mary Margaret but she just looked down at the floor. Maybe I was just being paranoid, but I noticed that she hadn't looked at me at all since my "confession." She hadn't said much to me either. It was like she was only speaking to me when I asked her a question.

"Anyway," I cut in, "I decided that being on stage was not for me and I joined the stage crew instead. Power tools were more my style."

JC started to laugh and gave a smirk, "Do you remember Tim Watson?"

Oh, how could I not remember him? Tim Watson was this tall, lanky kid who was about two years younger than me. His mother was the history teacher at the school but also a fantastic artist. His parents had divorced when he was little and he didn't see much of his dad, leaving him to think that he was the man of the house. Unfortunately that also made him think that he was the ruler of the school. I don't know if it was just his ego or if he just ignored the fact that nobody could stand to be around him. He would spout out orders and everyone would just ignore everything that he said and go about their business. "Ugh…I hated that kid."

"What was so bad about Tim Watson?" I smiled at my father. He was at least engaging in the conversation. My mother had taken to feeding Neal but she still would not even look in my direction. I made a slight frown as I took my glance from her back to my father. He was seeing it now too, it wasn't just my imagination. He sent me an understanding yet tender look and I answered his question.

"Oh, he was so annoying. He was one of those kids who thought that he knew everything about anything. His mother was the art director and was painting all of the back ground scenes. And he took her position to mean that he was in charge of all of the stage crew." I could feel all of the anger rushing back.

"Oh, there was one day where Tim had pushed Emma a little too far," JC took over telling the story. "Emma was assigned the job of attaching the muslin to a large wooden frame."

"It had to be stretched out just right, so that it could be painted," I interjected.

"Mrs. Watson had just finished telling Emma how to stretch it and she was doing a perfect job. But Tim came over and started to tear into Emma, and began to tell her how she wasn't leaving enough slack in the muslin. She had already had the muslin stapled to the frame and he told her that she had to take out all of the staples and redo it. Suddenly, the room went quiet when we heard Emma start screaming at him. You remember that?" He looked at me with a grin and I nodded. "All we heard, was 'go ahead Tim, say it again, I dare you!'"

My father gave me a knowing look and I couldn't help but smile at him when he asked "what did you do?"

"Nothing," I tried to act innocent. The key word there was try. But yeah, David saw right threw me instantly.

"Emma," David playfully drug out my name, calling my bluff. Ok, not only was he getting this parenting thing down, but he was starting to really know his daughter.

I stammered for a minute, before I came clean, "I may have tackled him." I squinted my eyes at him as if somehow that was going to soften the blow. I felt like I was a teenager again, trying to explain to my parents why I was suspended from school.

"And," JC laughed out.

"And, I may have threatened to staple his ears to the floor." I finished.

"Threatened? Mrs. Martin had to practically race across the room to rip the staple gun out of your hand! You were sitting on his back, holding his head down to the floor with one hand, and moving the staple gun towards his ear with the other."

My father began to laugh hysterically as he crossed behind me. He dropped a kiss on the top of my head as he reached for my dish to take to the kitchen. "That's my girl," he beamed with pride and I knew why. He always took pride in the strong woman that I had become. He loved the fact that I didn't take anyone's shit. From what I gathered from the stories, before he become the Prince, he was a very timid man who had to take a lot of shit from a lot of people. Which reminded me that one day I was going to have to ask him to tell me more about Bo Peep.

"Hey, it wasn't like the guy didn't have it coming. Everyone was thinking it, I just had the guts to do it." Yep. That was all the defense that I needed. Too bad I didn't know that I had magic back then or the outcome would have been very different.

"So who was this Mrs. Martin?

"She was the drama teacher and the director of the musical. She was quite skilled and demanded nothing less than perfection." I remembered that her reputation was impeccable. One of her high school performance could rival any performance put on by any city cultural trust.

"Emma's right, everyone wanted to put Tim in his place, but no was willing to take action. We all watched with baited breath. Mrs. Martin had a temper and she had said more than once that there was no room for petty arguments and such behavior among her cast and crew." I knew what JC was going to say next and I couldn't help but beam a childish smile. "So imagine our surprise when Mrs. Martin handed the staple gun back to Emma, and turned to Tim. I can still hear her yelling at him it too. She said 'Tim quit pissing Emma off, or the next time I'm not going to stop her!'"

"Yeah, he went running straight to his mother. I don't know what she said to him, but whatever it was it was apparent that she was on my side because he put his head down and slumped away." I couldn't help but laugh at the memory. I didn't see it then, but I definitely did now that I was an adult. Mrs. Martin was one of the few people in my adolescent life that was looking out for me.

"He sat in the corner the rest of the night."JC said as he looked down at his watch and put a hand on my shoulder. He began to stand. "Well, it's quarter til two, I better get going if I'm going to get back to Augusta before the weather hits too hard. It was wonderful meeting you all."

My father stood and reached a hand in his direction, "the pleasure was ours JC. Thank you for everything that you have done for Emma and our family. I think I speak for all us us when I say that we truly hope to visit with you again."

JC accepted his hand. "Thank you for your hospitality. I look forward to our next meeting."

"Come on, JC, I'll walk you out." I cast a glance to my parents. Again my mother looked away but my father nodded. I escorted JC to the door where he quickly slipped on his coat and hat.

"You have a wonderful family," JC said as we made our way down the stairs. "I'm very happy for you, Emma."

I spun around on him quickly. "Cut the crap, JC. What are you doing here? You said that we had to talk. But the only talking we have done today has been about my screwed up life. And thanks by the way. Thank you for making me tell my parents that horrible story. My mother can't even look at me now, let alone talk to me." I held onto my tough exterior, I was fighting so hard to hold back the tears. "I tried so hard to keep that part of my life from her. She didn't need to know any of that horrible stuff." And now she did.

"Emma, I'm sorry." He looked around to see if anybody was in earshot before he continued. "I have been looking for you for over a decade. An undertaking that has proven to be most difficult. It was about 4 or 5 months ago when I finally caught a break. My girlfriend, she is a detective with the Augusta Police Department. When your trail went cold, I enlisted her help to find you. She did. You came up on her registers as being the sheriff in Storybrooke, Maine. A town that seems can only be found by those who know where it is."

"Come on, you sound like the damn Pirates of The Caribbean movie." I interrupted.

"No Emma, I'm serious. It took a lot of searching to find this place. After we found it, we came here a couple of times looking for you. But we never did see you. We even stopped in that pawn shop and bought a little medallion that I hung from my rear view mirror."

"How did you find this place?" I crossed my arms. I was growing tired of the circles in all of his statements. I had been trying to get an answer to that question all day.

"I told you, my girlfriend is a detective. She used her resources find it. And you're right, I did come here for a reason today."

He was lying. There was no doubt about that, I had this uncanny ability to tell when anyone was lying, but I raised my eyebrow at him begging him to continue. "After seeing your mother's reaction, I decided that it was better to tell you when we were alone."

"And what is that, JC?" Yes, I let him beat around another bush, but I was on borrowed time before my father came down to check on me.

He quickly looked to floor then back up and directly into my eyes. "He's out."

That was all that he needed to say and I understood. Mr. Cooper was out of jail. "Is he looking for me?"

"I don't think so, but I haven't talked to him either."

I studied him for a minute. He was sincere about Mr. Cooper. "And what do you know about this town?"

He pursed his lips but then told me what I needed to hear or more specifically what he thought that I needed to hear. "On the trips that I have made here, I have seen things. People seem to feel safe here and they don't hide. One of my first trips scared the shit out of me though, when I saw some huge, I don't know…Ice Man moving down the street toward the forest? I stopped in that little diner to get some coffee to calm my nerves; because at that point I had convinced myself that I was hallucinating; when this guy named Leroy came in talking all about it and how someone named Regina blasted it with magic. I started asking questions, and to my surprise, I started getting answers. People here just assumed that everyone in this town was just like everyone else. I even had someone ask me who I was in the old world."

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Other than me, this town only had two other outsiders enter, Greg and Tamara. And Tamara wasn't that much of a concern at first because she came on the coat tails of Neal, under the guise of being his fiancé. So people here just assumed that everyone in town was from the enchanted forest. It was starting to fall in line. But he still was not telling me the whole truth and I wasn't going to push. Not right now anyway, my thoughts flooded back to my parents upstairs. I had to take care of them first. "I see…come on" I motioned toward the door to the outside. I was surprised to see that we already had about five inches of snow. "Ew, doesn't look like you're going anywhere at the moment." Without four wheel drive he was stuck in this town for a while and the snow didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon.

"Great. Nope it appears not. Any place to stay around here?"

I pointed down the street toward Granny's. "Granny's has a B&B attached to it. Tell Ruby that you're a friend of mine. She'll set you up."

"Thanks." He gave me a crooked smile.

"And try not to ask anymore questions, if you ask too many people will start to get suspicious. And you don't want that."

"Got it." He said as he turned in the direction of the diner.

"And JC," I called after him.

"Yeah?"

"Meet me and my dad at the police station tomorrow at 10 am. We need to talk." He nodded and walked away. I turned to face the building that I had just exited. I was in for a long evening of emotional healing and parental comforting. I cast one more backwards glance to JC. I did not have a good feeling about his arrival, but first things first, I had to fix things with my parents.