Dr. Leah Jeanne Watson, PhD.

Dr. Watson is a professor of linguistics at Dartmouth University, New Hampshire. She earned her PhD from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom in 2030. She briefly served -

"She's had a PhD for twenty two years?" Emma muttered to herself, scrolling further down the university's website page on Dr. Watson. "Why the fuck would she and her husband need someone to cover up a murder? What could a linguistics professor…"

She sighed, pausing, probing her forehead. It was late, and, after six hours of web searches, there was nothing of relevance. She turned back to the web page.

Dr. Watson pursued her passion for studying linguistics and passing that knowledge on to her students after her husband received a massive inheritance from his grandfather.

Emma snorted. The most interesting thing that had come up among her searches was that Stephen Watson's grandfather was one of the very few people to profit vastly off of the Enron scandal at the turn of the millenia.

With a secure future for herself and her family, Dr. Watson shifted her focus to studying and teaching. Within a few years of teaching, Dr. Watson earned tenure. She lives with her husband and their daughter in a comfortable home here in New Hampshire. Dr. Watson enjoys -

"Nope," Emma clicked off the page. "Damn it!"

Her eyes fell on the icons of browsers on her laptop home page.

Nothing else has worked. Can taking a look around the dark web really hurt?

She opened the browser.

Loading took forever, which she had expected. Considering the age of her laptop and the browser itself, things were going to load slow no matter what. She paused again, checking to ensure her VPNs were turned on. They were. She tapped her fingers against the sides of her laptop while the browser booted up. Finally, it was ready to search. Keywords. Watson family. That yielded too many irrelevant results. Stephen Watson Enron. She downloaded some financial and inheritance documents. Those could be combed through later. Dr. Leah Jeanne Watson. That yielded even less. Emma hesitated, downloading a couple of documents and archives on Leah, but her head was spinning. Their daughter. Her name was Aria, wasn't it? Her fingers started to type but stopped short of starting the search. Aria was a minor, and taking a look into some of the documents on her parents were questionable legally. Looking into information on her could potentially be hellishly illegal. She still had a right to privacy. Emma backspaced the entire potential search. Leah and Stephen had asked her to find information on a murder in Maine. A recent murder that may not have been reported. With a heavy sigh, she typed in another, much more gruesome search that she knew treaded into even more grey legal territory if crime scene photographs came up in the search results.

Maine-New Hampshire border current crime scenes blood murder.

Much to her shock, results were yielded.

Though there was no indication of where the crime had taken place, or any information on who the victim or victims had been, there were photographs. A red, 2010 toyota, the inside with blood smeared on the driver and passenger seats. Around the car, too, were signs of blood and struggle. She almost threw up.

She quickly closed the browser, her hands shaking and her chest rising and falling rapidly.

Her assumption had been right. The Watsons had been referring to a murder, or, at least, an attempted murder.

"Holy shit…"

She reached for her mobile phone but stopped short of turning it on and dialling the police.

If they take your computer and bring in FBI capacities, they'll be able to find what you were looking at. The Watsons have an ungodly amount of money, by their home in and of itself. There's no way in hell they won't be able to turn it around and make it look like you became an obsessed stalker who decided to kill them.

She set her mobile back down and stood up quickly. Her mind was reeling.

Who was that victim…did they survive?

This time, she did throw up.

"Mom, I want to see Netta," Henry sat at the top of the stairs, his backpack in his lap. "She's my sister. I want to see her. She's been in hospital for two weeks! I want to see her. I need to tell her it's okay!"

Regina glanced up at him while she finished putting in her earrings.

"Please?" Henry stared at her. "I want to make sure Netta knows I want her to be able to come home."

His mother hesitated. She slipped on her heels, and then, seeing how desperate he seemed to be, slowly started up the stairs. Henry slid over to one side, his hands still wrapped around his backpack. He waited when his mother sat down next to him. Then he hugged her, shoving his backpack aside. Regina briefly closed her eyes, holding onto her son. Lynn's stabilised. They said they thought, when she passed out, she was slipping into a coma, that a coma was the most likely result. But she's also going to be okay, and the day off work to give her blood for the second transfusion yielded positive results for her. She's stable. She's going to be okay. Henry shifted a bit when he realised his mother was starting to cry. He reached up to wipe aside her tears, realising she was crying before she had herself. After a few minutes, Regina calmed down enough to stand up and then pull her son up with her. Henry scooped up his backpack and swung it over his shoulders. He took his mother's hand, with the two of them walking down the stairs together. He waited in the landing while his mother unplugged her mobile and dropped it into her work bag. She grabbed her keys off the bookcase by the front door as well, but paused when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, Leah's voice creeping back into her mind.

You are a murderer. You are the evil queen. Everything fell into place for why Lynn started that fight after we realised the truth.

"Mom?" Henry lightly tugged her hand. "Are you okay? You're getting weird."

Regina flinched but then turned to face her son.

"If you want to see your sister, that's fine," She finally said. "But you need to know what happened to her before that."

Henry eyed her strangely. "I thought she was in a car accident. That's what everyone at school said!"

"They're wrong," Regina sighed when he let go of her hand and hugged her again. "This is incredibly grim, Henry. Are you sure that you can handle that?"

He looked up at her and nodded. "She's my sister," He said simply. "I want to make sure she's okay."

Regina went quiet for a second before kneeling down to her son's height, her hands on his shoulders.

"Your sister was not in a car accident. She did steal a car, but she did not crash, she did not have any trouble with it, and she did not have a spontaneous medical emergency."

Henry hesitantly nodded. "So…what happened?"

"First," Regina said, flinching again at the thought. "What did you hear?"

"Well, a couple of the older kids said she stole a car and was in a car accident," Henry said. "Since she doesn't have her licence yet, she wasn't good enough at driving yet and swerved off the road. So she called emergency services when she came to, and they came and got her and took her to hospital."

I wish that were the case. It would have been terrible, but a little less terrible than what really happened. Traumatic either way…but no one would have tried to take her life away from her. What was it they said to her…she said they…they told her that she 'wouldn't have to worry ever again' or something along those lines. They threatened her. They pretended to be her friends. They…

"Mom?" Henry pressed again. "What happened?"

"Do you remember your sister's…friends," She made no attempt to hide the bitterness in her voice. "Aria and Cindy?"

Henry nodded. "Netta went to sleepovers and parties with them! Are they coming to visit her?"

"No," Regina softened her voice when Henry jumped at how harsh she had started. "No, they aren't coming to visit her. They…they're the reason she's in hospital. Your sister, as you saw, snuck out and stole a car. She was meeting up with them, and thought they would just be hanging out and drinking. But they took her out there to kill her. They stabbed her. She is only alive because she was able to bandage herself up enough to survive through the night in the car she stole, and was able to call for help when she woke up."

Henry all but jumped into his mother's arms and hugged her tighter than he had before.

"Netta's going to be okay though, right?"

"Yes," Regina whispered. "She is now that she's safe."

"The new car looks nice," Mary Margaret sighed, taking a sip of her coffee. "Does it run okay?"

Ruby laughed a little. "Better than okay, it runs almost silently. I just can't believe the mayor gave it to me with no questions asked. I mean, she even went to the trouble to have it paid for and registered in my name!"

"She must be so relieved that her daughter is safe," Mary Margaret set down her coffee. "Although I thought she would be terribly angry with you because it was your car her daughter knew to take."

Ruby shrugged, starting to wipe down the counters. It was getting late but, per what had just about become tradition for them, she and Mary Margaret were the only people left in the diner.

"Regina is a complicated person," Ruby eventually said. "Yeah, she didn't have to go out of her way to do that for me, but she was never upset with me. To be honest, she seemed quasi-relieved that I was able to give her any semblance of direction as to where Lynn could be."

Mary Margaret considered that. "You're right. Sorry, Ruby, I'm probably just projecting."

"In what way?" Ruby said, tilting her head a bit to the side. "You doing okay?"

"I am, it's just…" She trailed off. "It's silly, but it has really bothered me that Regina was so…forceful about me not seeing her daughter at all. I wanted to check in on her, and Regina just about slapped me."

"I'm sure she wasn't trying to," Ruby kindly said. "She is under a lot of stress, and paranoid. She probably will calm down more as Lynn gets better."

"I know," Mary Margaret took another sip of her coffee, her mind reeling. Eventually, about half her coffee drank, she set it back down. "It's been a month since she was attacked, though. I thought she would have…"

"Levelled out a bit?" Ruby suggested, continuing to wipe down the counters again. "I get that. But, then again, it's a hugely traumatic thing for all of them."

Mary Margaret tiredly nodded. "You're probably right. It's all terrible. Tragic, really."

"Yep," Ruby swore under her breath. "I hope that, when Lynn recovers, she and her family will be able to sue whoever the fuck did that to her. Because they…I mean, among other things, they left her out there to die! Who does that?"

"I don't know," Mary Margaret bit her lip. "You're definitely right. I can't imagine that happening to anyone I love. I…"

"Hey," Ruby leaned over, resting her hands over the teacher's. "You care a hell of a lot about everyone. Of course you were confused by Regina's reaction. She's defensive, whereas you are completely empathetic. It's a good thing, Mary Margaret. I promise."

She hesitantly met her eyes.

"I may be a bit oversensitive right now," She said quietly. "I went to visit our John Doe, and he nearly died the other day. I was there, and it was…"

"Is he okay now?"

"Yes," Mary Margaret looked between her hands and Ruby. "Just the thought of someone who is in a horrible state already….the thought of them dying must just be a lot for me right now."

"And there's nothing wrong with that," Ruby gently reminded her. "Like I said, you care a lot about everyone. That's why you've spent as much time working volunteer hours at the hospital for years. Of course you're sensitive. But the important thing is that both he and Lynn are still alive."

"You're right," Mary Margaret managed a small smile. "Thanks, Ruby, I think I really need to hear -"

The door chimed, a rush of air flying in, and then a slam and the tapping of boots on the floor.

"Sorry," Chloe pulled off her glasses for a second to rub her eyes. "We're out of sparkling water and I don't want to have wine right now."

Ruby laughed, pulling out a bottle and pushing it towards the bony, pink haired woman.

"What are you doing up?"

"I was writing sheet music for an upcoming show," She cast a wary look towards Mary Margaret. "I went to get more sparkling, couldn't find it, and decided it would be a bad idea to open bubbly wine."

"Reasonable," Ruby winked. "I have been in the same scenario, and, believe me, you're making the right decision. The hangovers I have had…they were nightmare fuel. And that's to say the least."

Replies To Reviews:

jasouatfan: Leah has no idea who Emma is, but she was definitely startled by the idea someone in Emma's position would reject a decent pay for just about anything.

barrattajennifer: of course! i'm always happy to keep working with this story.

Sammii16: Emma has seen and done a lot, but she has her wits about her. as for Aria's parents, they don't realise they're doing the same thing they always hated Regina for - going to whatever lengths possible to protect/defend their child.

Coral Skipper: i'm glad you liked it! it's a much smoother way to introduce Emma into the story, even though she won't see Storybrooke for another two years.

The White Shell Mermaid: and, when the time comes, pieces are going to fall together in a deeply complicated and disturbing way for her.