~Thirteen Years Ago~

It was Emma's first day attending classes at Storybrook High, being a bit lost, but not stopping to ask for help or anything only hoping to avoid drawing attention. She's already the only new student and that's more than enough spotlight.

She's carrying a paper with her class schedule, having already memorized it the night prior when father brought it home saying she'd not be sitting on her lazy butt anymore, her teeth cringe when she remembers it. Still she looks at it and avoids the other people crossing her path through the hallway, until she bumps into somebody. "Sorry," She mumbles with her eyes still lock at the piece of paper.

"Pay attention while you're walking, would you?" She hears the other person whine. And a second person trying to calm the other afterwards.

"It was just a silly..." The voice fades out because she carelessly keeps walking away from the two and once she can't hear anything she breathes out heavily and looks up for the first time since reaching the second floor.

And she couldn't regret that decision more, she's caught up by two incredibly angry, amazingly beautiful, pair of brown eyes staring right at her. A shiver runs down her spine and the sensation makes her feel extremely impotent, as if she's just been caught doing something wrong to the core and she must feel ashamed for it.

~Present Time~

The following day comes bringing a cloudy morning to Storybrooke, the city streets are empty except for a few commerce establishments opening doors to a lack of clients. The majority of the residents are already moving to the address of mansion, located in a rather nice neighborhood; dressed in black to project their mourning over Leopold Blanchard's death as is expected. And other few direct themselves to the school in oder to drop of their children.

In the middle of the Main Street a car heads elsewhere, not to the Blanchard's house, not school or any coffeeshop, the black Mercedes keeps moving further and further away from midtown.

Emma Swan was not born a morning person, but she's had to learn how to be one due to life circumstances. This day, though, she permits herself the guilty pleasure of sleeping a few hours more than she usually does, the couch of Mary Margaret's apartment seems far more comfortable than any of the beds she laid in over the past months.

Slowly she opens her eyes, expecting the need to get used to the lights that she's sure should be coming from every corner of the room, but somehow those lights are blocked by what she identifies as someone staring straight at her face. At first she thinks it's her sister, but her brain quickly processes that it isn't Mary and in a reflex she sits up and sucks in air ready to say some shitty words, or yell, or do something, but none of those things happen.

She sighs relieved with a hand on the left side of her chest. "Jesus, kid! What are you doing?!"

Henry jumps scared after the blonde sleepy woman sat up, "Sorry." He's almost completely out of breath.

"It's okay."

Emma looks around the strangely empty and silent apartment.

"Miss Blanchard left few minutes ago."

Emma doesn't know why Mary would leave without waking her to go with. That's what she's there for, isn't it? And not only did she leave without Emma, she also left the kid behind. Emma was already halfway to flipping out because not only is she often uncomfortable around children, she's also never had a fucking clue as to what she was supposed to do with them. To top it all of she has a weird sensation towards the boy, a sense of fault, denial, but she learned how to deal with those some point in her past.

"So, when is your dad coming?"

Deciding to act normally, Emma starts to gather the sheets in a messy stack and the pillow to throw over to the bedroom adjacent to the living room.

"My mom," he corrects. "She must be on her way."

The blonde starts walking to the kitchen on her search for some black coffee to start the day, this has been a habit.

"I thought Mary Margaret said you were the mayor's kid."

"I am!" Henry doesn't hesitate to answer.

Before Emma can get to the kitchen, a knock on the door makes her change her route and direct herself to answer it moaning in complain. Henry only follows her with his eyes, the boy hasn't moved since she opened her eyes.

"The mayor is a single mom." She speaks her incredulous words while opening the door to a sight she wouldn't have expected in a billion years.

Emma's immediately hit by a million thoughts, feelings, possible reactions, so many things at once it's hard to think anything. She opens her mouth for the third time but nothing comes out as in the previous attempts. If not for Henry coming between the two of them, she had no clue how much worse this could go.

"Mom," Both look to him. Regina tries not to let the mask go off, Emma is just on her way to process what's going on. "This is Emma." He introduces the blonde and her eyes are directed to the other woman.

Regina is just so...different! She's still a beautiful woman, certainly one to take breaths away, or make people jealous. But the lightly colored dresses, dark pair of jeans, the long sleeved shirts with no more than two buttons opened, the slightly curled long hair, everything is gone. This is not the teenager, the popular girl, the often trouble maker, and so called temperamental, she once knew. While the other woman is still sharing a moment with Henry, Emma observers the curves that fit well into the sophisticated professional black dress, the self-centered features. The biggest difference Emma notices, the smile, isn't the radiant, bright smile she used to get, it isn't fake either. Emma knows very well Regina's fake smiles, she got a bunch of those, and this is far from it. This just isn't...free.

"I know who she is." Regina keeps her eyes on him. "Are you ready to go?"

Gosh, Emma thinks, that voice is just so amazing. Much stronger, firmer, than she had ever heard before. Henry nods and the blonde woman notices he already has his backpack in hands.

"Where's Miss Blanchard?"

Emma frowns at the formal choice of name, and for the first time she speaks, "Mary's already left to the funeral...reception, or whatever those things are called."

When Regina looks up at her, Emma struggles between heaven and hell. The brown eyes are as dark as she remembers them, and she missed them so much throughout all those years being so far away. But they seem to burn when meeting hers, heavy weighted, and at the same time, they are empty, absent of any emotion.

"See you there then."

The short phrase put an end to their meeting, the first one after what seems like an eternity, but lasted thirteen years, three months, and eighteen days, not that any of them were counting; almost a third of their lives. Emma watches as mother and son walk down the hallway. Before they turn the corner Henry looks back at the blonde and smiles at her. Emma has her eyes on Regina, she certainly still could walk as if she owns the room. Her eyes are about to make the way down to- whatever she was looking for she didn't have time to even have a quick peek of it because right in the moment she sees Henry looking back at her, she swallows hard after being caught, but the odd scene doesn't last long as she sees his smile and they are gone.

So Emma Swan is actually back, there's a part of Regina that still cannot believe it. The blonde never came back all those years, not even once, she greatly doubted she'd come be back for Leopold's funeral. At least not after everything. But in the end he was still her father, of course she'd be there to say goodbye, maybe put an end to the troubled relationship they had.

The drive to Henry's school was almost in total silence, as most days lately. The more she tries to get closer to her son, the more he repels her, and Regina doesn't know what else to do, so she decided a while ago it would be best to give him time to adapt to the last changes of life.

"I liked her." She is in the dark, clueless of what he refers to. "Emma."

It still surprises her how well he can read her.

She tries not think of Emma as one more to fill her place in his life, she knows the woman is very likely to be gone in the blink of an eye.

See, that's the thing about Emma Swan, she's constantly moving from place to place and never stays for too long. Even when she first came to Storybrooke, it hadn't been much more than a year and she was gone again.

She's so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn't see when he takes off his seatbelt and walks out the car until the door is shut and he stops after a few steps looking back to her.

"She's really pretty." He says with a smile she misses so much upon his face, and she returns it immediately.

She knows exactly what he meant by both his phrases, he likes her and also thinks she's pretty. Short sentences filled with implications. Maybe telling the truth wouldn't be such a bad idea. She's not sure right now, but maybe things could be rebuilt between the two of them.

Rebuilt, fresh, new; these are rarely used by Regina, but are the things she's been thinking of non-stop for quite sometime.

The busy morning is just about start, she reminds herself as she leaves the school parking lot to one of the places she's not particularly fond of. The Blanchard's house. Every occasion she's forced to go inside that house is just a reminder of how much she had once disappointed her mother. That woman had left so long ago but can still bring her such regretful thoughts. It certainly doesn't help in any possible way to know she's entering those doors to be face to face with Mary Margaret Blanchard, one of her many past ghosts that never left her life. That she is forced to deal with each day of her existence, she also remembers that Emma might be there too, and the knowledge of that fact makes her feel disoriented.

Leopold was always a pig to her, but he was also a cherished citizen by the eyes of almost all of the residents of Storybrooke, and as the current Mayor she has tasks to fulfill and it unfortunately includes attending his funeral and pretending to mourn his death.

In the front row she can see the unmistakable - it's been less than a day and she already thinks thereof of her - locks of golden hair, she remembers them to be so different, besides the color, that's still the same old. Emma's hair used to be straight, the image of the teenage girl she keeps in mind is different from the one she sees in the grown up figure. She used to always collect her hair in a simple ponytail, the clothes were always two sizes larger than her body demanded them to be, rarely choosing dresses as an outfit. But the eyes, they're still the same ones, the fascinating bluish green. Since the starting point, despite all the mockery Regina never denied its beauty. It's still hard to get along with the fact she has a soft spot for the color.

The priest starts the ceremony welcoming everyone and soon engages in a speech all about Mr. Blanchard, as he respectfully says, the man, and his great deeds. Once or twice someone makes a comment about how great he had been for the town and Regina fights the sarcastic grin. Instead keeping a straight face and not saying a word during the whole ceremony, that is until the priest invites Miss Swan to say a few words, Regina frowns and lifts an eyebrow curious to know how far the blonde would go. She's not surprised when the woman declines right away and a jabber starts to go on only to be shortly shushed.

Not long after the final words are said, everyone starts to leave the house and head to the graveyard. Regina falls behind wanting to keep some distance from the crowd. Out of the corner of her eyes she sees the moment Emma leaves the place, strangely everything the blonde does seems to attract Regina's eyes.

Emma keeps nervously flipping her weight from one foot to the other, she can't wait for this to be over. Hearing all the blabbing about her father was just the worse part of it, during the ceremony she lost count of how many had gone up there to say few, but really long, words. She almost freaked when the priest called her to do it, she was so indulged on her thoughts of how boring this was that she didn't hear his first call. When she understood what was going on the blonde is quick to decline it, which caused a much expected commotion from the crowd.

Halfway through the graveyard, Emma slows her pace bit by bit until she's nearly behind everyone. With her head traveling through her storm of confusing thoughts, she reaches for her coat's pocket to confirm the letter is still there. And as old habits die hard there she goes bumping into someone.

"Use your eyes before walking in any direction. It would be highly appreciated, Miss Swan." Regina complains as she storms past her.

Emma just huffs her frustration internally kicking herself for whatever the hell just happened. Until someone comes to distract her out of Regina Mills.

"I thought you learned the lesson first time around." A brunette stops by her side, she's far too young to have been a classmate. But the over use of red gives it away even if she is a lot more covered than the thirteen years younger version of herself. "Surprising, huh? I just figured I couldn't be on miniskirts forever."

"Lucas? You're Ruby 'Red' Lucas?!" Emma finally speaks shocked.

"That's what it says on the birth certificate, yes." She jokes, as her old self would. And Emma smiles.

"It's just that you look so, different, good different of course, I was just surprised and you know, not expecting." Emma stutters.

"It's okay, get that often."