Hi lovely readers, apologies on my delay. Was on a vacation! Please enjoy, xoxo

"Welcome to Ski Esta." Henry Mills yelled joyously as he opened the doors to what Emma or any normal person would consider a castle, to welcome them.

Regina waved at her father, who was off in the distance, as he made his way to her car through the snow.

Just like her previous time in Maine, Emma shivered from the brittle cold air and leaned closer into Regina for warmth. Her teeth chattering from the cold, she asked, "Izzz.. Your dad.. in th..the mafia?" Emma managed to get out.

The size of the resort home was unbelievably large. So large, that Emma couldn't really come up with any logical solutions as to why four people would need as much space.

Regina just pointedly glared her eyes at Emma as they started unloading the trunk of her Mercedes. Emma threw her hands up in a mock surrender with a large grin on her face. She was just teasing the older woman, which obviously worked. "Daddy likes to splurge on this place. There is an indoor pool and movie theater amongst other amenities. My mother always complains because it's large enough to sleep, forty people." Regina said, nonchalantly.

Emma shook her head back and rolled her eyes around to emphasize her utter shock. "Forty people?"

"As I said before, we will not have a problem with privacy," Regina added quickly just as sounds of crunching snow alerted them that her father was walking up. Emma stole a quick kiss on her cheek just before Regina exclaimed, "Daddy!"

The older Mills grabbed her into a big bear hug. "I've missed you so much." He wasn't as tall as Emma thought he would be. He was rather short in fact. On a day when Regina was in heels, she would have towered over the older man. Perhaps as he aged, he grew smaller. Emma didn't know, but she smiled to herself as she watched Regina hug her father.

"I've missed you too!" Regina said as she pulled away. Her eyes then moved to where Emma stood next to her. "Dad, I want you to meet someone very special to me." Regina ran her hand down Emma's arm reassuringly.

Before Emma could bring her hand out to introduce herself, she was engulfed in a warm embrace. "You must be Emma." He said into her blonde hair.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Mills," Emma said once released from the tight embrace.

"Oh, please would you call me Henry? Mr. Mills is too formal. You're practically family." He said with a smile that could end world wars and cure cancer.

Emma nodded and it was Henry that leaned forward and picked up their two bags of luggage. "Follow me inside. We have your room picked out. You're mother chose a room for you both, furthest from ours, it's really nice. I don't think you've stayed in this room before. She seems to think you'll appreciate the distance away from our room." He winked at Emma just before walking off in the direction of the home.

She couldn't help that her eyes grew to the size of tennis balls, but who would blame her. "What did he mean, we'd appreciate the space? Was he just insinuating something?" She asked in a hushed whisper.

"Oh and princess…" They heard and looked up. "I thought you might like the bathroom to the room we picked out for you. It has the bench in the shower just like the one in your home. I'm sure that will come in handy for you and Emma… you know, to relax your sore muscles from working out, I mean from skiing." He laughed to himself as he opened the front door.

Neither Regina nor Emma laughed along with him. Instead, Emma turned and looked at her girlfriend with pleading puppy dog eyes that searched for a reason as to why Regina's father was insinuating what he was.

Regina just shook her head and avoided Emma's eyes.

"Oh and Emma there's a nice sauna downstairs as well. I tend to really enjoy that after being in the snow all day." He carried on, his back to them both. "Really relaxes me, can be quite euphoric after an hour. My wife says that's because I'm dehydrating myself." He rambled on.

"I'm sure it's wonderful, I, er, mean the relaxing part." Emma corrected herself, as she closed the front door behind herself.

"Where's mother?" Regina asked looking around the grand foyer.

"Oh, she went out to get some groceries. She'll be back soon." He said over his shoulder as he started up the stairs. They followed him up the winding staircase, to the next level, and down the hall. All the while, listening to him prattle on about his homemade wine that he had been concocting, how he did it, and what he used. "It's got a real nice bubbly taste, I think you'll enjoy it, Regina, I find it rather refreshing. Though, your mother doesn't seem to enjoy it as much as I. Emma, do you like wine?"

Emma looked up now that he was talking to her. Prior, her eyes were soaking in the lavishness of the home as they traveled about. "Oh, uhm, it's good. I really enjoy anything with alcohol in it." Emma added. "I haven't had homemade wine before. I'm excited to taste some. I've had homemade cider and moonshine, but that's about it."

"Ah, well-" Henry sat down their bags and clapped his hands together once they entered their room. "Then, why don't you join me downstairs in the lower level great room. We can all share a glass together and get to know one another."

It didn't come as a shock to Emma, his first question that is. It was the average first question most people tend to ask. One that most people loathe. Let's be honest, when in the privacy of your own headspace, it's easy to come up with some long drawn out speech about who you are and where you come from. However, the moment someone asks you to tell them about yourself, you end up with the most boring, one-dimensional stuff to say. Which is exactly happened to Emma.

"So Emma, why don't you tell me about yourself," Henry asked once they were settled downstairs on the sofas, wine glasses in hand.

Emma blushed. She had no experience meeting the parents, but Henry seemed to be a really nice and open guy, which made it easy, right? Not in the slightest.

"Well, I'm from Florida, as you may know." Emma ran her hands through her hair. "Er, I, well, I work as an investigator for a law firm in Orlando," She said… She pursed her lips together and thought out loud, "Let's see…" Emma faded off thinking of what else she could say. "I've got a cat named Weezy, well sort of." Emma frowned to herself. "He's actually not even my cat."

"I don't follow," Henry said, sipping the wine.

Regina cut in catching on to her girlfriends nervousness. "Weezy is a neighbor's cat that Emma has come to take under her wing."

"It's not my cat," Emma said with a sad face. Scarlet leaked into her pale cheeks. "Anyways…" Emma gulped, already starting to feel unpleasantly awkward. "I have a good best friend named August, who I spend most of my time with if I'm not working, or talking to Regina."

"I see. That's nice." He drank more of his homemade wine. "Can you tell me about one of your last cases you investigated?"

Emma nodded, "The last one was rather interesting. For the most part, I investigate cheating spouses since I work for a divorce lawyer. A wife had contacted my boss Maurice, she said that she suspected he was cheating. Listed off the usual stuff, distant personality, coming home smelling like perfume, and she even found some questionable feminine items. After a drawn out investigation, I determined that for once, he wasn't cheating."

"What was he doing?" Henry asked, his attention fully focused on Emma's story.

"He was a performer at the Jolly Hooker in Orlando as a drag queen."

"That's an interesting turn of events. How did his wife take it?" Henry snickered into his wine glass.

"I actually don't know. My boss Maurice informed her." Emma didn't add the part that the drag queen, Al Spencer, was the same person who acquired Regina's company. She wasn't sure how much Regina shared with her family.

"How are your parents? What do they do?" The older, gray-haired man asked. His gravelly voice carried his age and the Cuban cigars he spent a lifetime smoking.

Emma really appreciated that he was really trying to get to know her, to get her out of her shell. "My mom is a retired teacher and my father is a general manager at a power plant," Emma said. "Regina tells me that you and your wife are professors at Brown and were recently on sabbatical visiting Ireland? What, uhm, what do you teach?"

Henry smirked. The way his lips curled upward reminded Emma so much of Regina. She could see the apple didn't roll to far from the tree. Especially the way his brow turned in just a little.

He started to laugh and then almost cautiously asked his daughter, "Regina, you haven't told her?"

"Told her what?" An old, but feminine voice echoed throughout the room. Emma stood in response to greeting the older woman, who looked very much like her girlfriend."You must be Regina's mother." Emma brought her hand out to greet her.

Emma was mesmerized by her appearance as she shook the older woman's hand. She had long brown hair, but not the shade of Regina's. It was lighter and infused with tints of red and streaks of blonde. She had Regina's nose and their lips looked eerily similar. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Emma, I'm Cora. Now tell me, what little detail has our daughter left out." Her perfectly sculpted eyebrow was raised. Emma gulped and turned to her girlfriend for the answer. What was so bad about what they taught to begin with?

Regina, on the other hand, looked humiliated. "I didn't tell her because it's weird." She grumbled. Emma had never seen this side of Regina before. Isn't that what Christmas is really always about, though? Family and all of their annoying tendencies bringing out different sides to us all.

"Oh hush." Her mother smirked. "No matter how old you get, you still can't come to terms with the fact that we're professors of sexuality."

"Of what?" Emma asked, her mouth dropped.

"Of sexuality, dear. Why's that so shocking?" Her mother said, amused.

"They teach that? That's a thing?" Emma asked confused. That was totally not a thing at the University of Miami. At least not when she went.

A smoke worn voice responded huskily, "Yes and Regina here is embarrassed by it. She refused to take our classes, even though her friends all loved it. Speaking of friends, how's Kat?"

Emma frowned because ew...Kat. She just wanted to forget that woman.

"She's doing well. I'll let her know that you asked about her." Regina said, tensely.

Cora interjected and circled back to their jobs. "That reminds me, speaking of Kat, one semester we were teaching American Sexuality and Henry brought in a vibrator from… What was it eighteen… Henry, oh what date was that I know it was in the Victorian era from 1837-1901? My old age is making me forgetful." Cora asked her husband as she winced her face trying to recall the date. A hand perched on her hip and the other massaging her temple willing herself to remember the date. Even the older woman's body language reminded her of Regina.

"It was from eighteen ninety." He said sipping his wine as he relaxed back into the leather sofa, watching everything unfold.

"Oh, that's right. It was from eighteen ninety, odd looking thing, and I plugged it in. Henry was giving the lecture on how it was used to relieve women's temporary insanity. Then all of the sudden, next things I knew, I was holding an eight-inch dildo that was on fire."

Henry was chuckling to himself at the memory and started coughing. He cleared his throat and added, "The whole class was rolling in fits of laughter." He emphasized with his drink-less hand. "Regina's friends, including Kat, were in that class too and I think we won the parents of the year award. We were the talk of the campus."

"The opposite in fact." Regina argued, "I got to hear that story over and over again. Apparently, my mother was running around with her head cut off, the fiery dildo was starting to blow sparks. When-" Regina was cut off.

"Oh, that's when Henry made a sex pun to the class as I was trying to put out the fire." Cora laughed.

"Yes, that's right." Henry's eyes gleamed. "I said it must have been last used in a red head. Get it, must have been in a fiery crotch."

Emma couldn't help but awkwardly laugh. "Regina, your parents are great." Then it dawned on Emma and she seriously asked, "Wait, why was it used?"

"Cora purchased it off eBay." Henry shook his head. "Unreliable."

"It was not."

"Is too."

"Is not-"

"Enough!" Regina said. "You two are like children."

"Well, dear, we are young at heart." Cora said with a twinkle in her eye as she winked at Henry.

"And that's exactly why I didn't tell Emma what you did."

"She's been in denial since she was fourteen when she figured it out."

"Maybe because it's not normal to walk in on your parents teaching random people, in your home might I add, how to have an hour long org-" Regina was cut off by her mother.

"I think you would have learned a thing or two if you would have just listened in."

"Again, I was fourteen." Regina added. "See why I live in Maine." She directed the last part at Emma. "And why I wanted to go to Bates, not Brown."

"Would you relax, you're being dramatic."

"Emma, you tell me, if you saw your parents in some weird sex position, all contorted, with a bunch of old people teaching them what the G-spot is, how would you feel?"

"Okay and now we're tabling this conversation." Emma said. She'd never even heard her parents having sex and she sure as Hell didn't want to think about it.

"Your sexual aura is off, dear." Cora said walking around Emma. "You're tightly wound up. Regina needs to take you back upstairs to help-" She was cut off.

"Okay, mother, that's enough." Emma's fearful eyes watched as Regina tried to steer her mother away from her sexual aura.

"Regina, I can sense these things." Cora defended herself. "Emma, you need to loosen yourself up." Cora said as she stood in front of the blonde. She grabbed her shoulders and started rolling them around shaking her about. The awkward part was that Emma was just letting her do it since she didn't know what else to do, or how to make a safe escape from Cora's prying hands.

"Sweetheart, I think you're traumatizing the poor girl." Henry said catching Emma's green eyes.

"Why don't we sit and enjoy the wine I made." He offered.

Cora looked at Emma. She studied her eyes long and hard. It made Emma feel like she was reading her entire life story and that was incredibly creepy.

"There's something special about you." Cora said. She then added, "Let's enjoy some wine, shall we?" Emma nodded in response.

Cora turned and asked her daughter, "Regina, do you want your father's wine, or would you like a glass of Merlot?"

"I'll try dad's wine and have some Merlot later."

It was the icebreaker, the wine. Emma would later praise God for that. She indulged herself in it and while she knew wine was meant for sipping, all Emma could do was take several large gulps each chance she got. Her flushing cheeks and the tingling sensation her skin felt was a clear indicator the wine was doing its trick. Whatever Henry did to make it, it was strong, and it was a woman's best friend.

Henry's voice was one that could have been used for commercials on the radio, books on tape, or for documentaries. While it was old and at times he needed to clear his throat, it was easy to listen to. "Oh.. Oh I had this dream last night." He said. "It was a really odd, weird dream. It felt real. One of the most realistic ones I've had in some time now and I think that's the strangest part of it all." Henry said as he leaned over and grabbed his cocktail napkin from the side table.

Emma watched as he started playing with, tearing it to shreds, assumed it was due to him being tipsy and asked, "What was it about? Aliens taking over? Clowns? Hate those dreams. Or was it a Zombie apocalypse? I have those dreams a lot. Just last week I was chased by my boss who was a zombie. I did the double tap, Zombieland is the best reference for how to survive an apocalypse." Emma easily added as she steered him back to his dream. She had to wonder how old Regina's parents were. They seemed ancient, perhaps they had Regina later in life, sought out success before settling down.

"No, it wasn't like that. I was in a field." His hands still twisting around the napkin. Emma leaned closer. Regina also had her attention on her father. "There was this big red barn and I was standing in the chicken coup having oral sex with a chicken."

"Daddy!" Regina was fifty shades of red.

"Ew, that's gross." Emma winced at the mental image. Who the Hell dreams about oral sex with a chicken?

"Yeah, it was gross for me too. I was so disoriented when I woke up. I couldn't believe it. The worst part…" He said as he leaned closer to Emma as if to share a secret, "I keep getting this tickle in the back of my throat. It makes me cough." He then brought his hand to his mouth coughing shreds of ripped pieces of napkin in Emma's face.

The feathery pieces were lodged in her hair and she couldn't help but laugh. Laugh at the awkwardness, laugh at the crudeness and laugh for the mere fact that her girlfriend was actively trying to sink further into the sofa to become one with the leather.

"That entire time, you were kidding. Like you didn't actually dream that did you?" Emma asked.

"Of course not, I'd never dream about oral sex with a chicken." He laughed at Emma. "Tell me, Emma, do you have any good jokes?"

Emma turned and looked at her girlfriend for permission. Regina rolled her eyes and grumbled something like, "Go ahead."

"I mean, it's nothing like that, but it's one that my friend August told me last week."

Henry nodded and Emma nervously asked, "Why did Jesus die on the cross?"

"I have no idea. Regina, do you?" Regina, a wallflower, had now fully removed herself from the conversation shook her head no.

"Because he forgot the safe word."

Henry chuckled into his wine glass just as Cora was entering the room. "Oh dear, you have Emma talking about safe words? Maybe she's not as tightly wound as I thought!"

"Oh my god. You two are impossible." Regina was now mortified. "Let's go upstairs and freshen up for dinner."

"Uh…" Emma drew out. "Okay." Emma nodded. She sat her glass down and stood up and reached out for Regina's hands to help her up. She had to admit, if these were her parents, she'd be just as horrified from their crudeness. Though it was endearing that even at their age, they could still have fun.

"Regina, why didn't you tell me that your parents were this down to Earth?" Emma asked as she washed her face. She grabbed a hand towel and dried it off and turned to look at her girlfriend, who visibly shuddered.

"Because my entire life they embarrassed me. I wanted nothing to do with their sex talk and sexual studies. It's one thing coming from your professor, but not your parents. I purposely avoided everything that had anything to do with it."

"Oh…," Emma said. "Is that why you didn't know things about transgender people or drag queens?" Emma asked softly. That would make a lot of sense. I mean, Emma was naive about rabbits in a sex store because no one ever told her. How does someone know that a dildo that vibrates is called a rabbit? She still was in disbelief.

Regina nodded.

It was at that moment that Emma knew something was wrong, like really and truly wrong.

"Emma, there's something that you need to know." Regina said.

If Emma was waiting for the carpet to be pulled from under her feet, that was this, that was happening.

She tried to be funny about it to soften whatever blow she was about to take to the gut. "Well, aren't you just full of surprises. First there was the curveball with Kathryn, your parents jobs, and now what? I'm sure I can handle it. I'm a big girl." Emma playfully said to Regina. She walked up to her and gripped the sides of her arms and pulled her close. "I mean it, whatever it is I can handle it." She said and then added, "Tell me what's on that pretty mind of yours?"

Regina leaned into Emma's warmth. And Emma let her, she loved Regina and there was nothing that could change that.

"My parents know." It came out like a whisper, words that really should never have been said, words that should never have been heard.

Emma's ears rang as if the words were yelled, even though they were barely even audible. Surely what Regina's parents knew wasn't what Emma's mind instantly jumped to.

"Know what?" Emma asked she wasn't upset, just a little bemused by Regina's choice of words because there was no way Regina told them she was transgender or did she?

"I… When I first found out, you remember that I left because I was upset?" Regina asked slowly.

Emma's heart started to race and she backed her way out Regina's grasp, away from the lavish bathroom in which they stood, and backed all the way till she sat down on their bed.

"You told your parents." Emma asked her face was impassive and she had no idea what to say really or think. In fact for once, Emma couldn't think she could only feel. Her body was already starting to revolt, panic seeping through every pore, and skin tingling on edge.

"I can explain." Regina sat down next to Emma. She tried to take Emma's hand, but she refused.

"You can explain?" Emma said, mindlessly. But all Emma could really concentrate on was how her shirt collar felt too tight. Her fingers reached up to the fabric to try and loosen it, to relieve herself of the choking sensation. Her skin felt heated, she knew her face was red from embarrassment, but there wasn't anything she could do to make that go away. Her chest felt heavy and she felt this annoying need to cry. To cry out because of the humiliation, but she didn't. Instead, she stood and walked over to the French doors of their shared room that led to an outdoor porch. "I need air." Emma said hoarsely.

"Emma, please wait?" Regina tried. "I promise I have an explanation." The other woman's voice was filled with worry. Emma couldn't bring herself to look at her. Instead, her trembling hand turned the knob of the French door and walked out onto the porch.

The cold didn't cure her burning skin. It just made her miss the warmth of the room. Her eyes had pools of tears threatening to fall. And her chest still ached. The fresh air just burnt her lungs from how cold it was. No matter how upset Emma started to feel, she still craved Regina and wanted to be close to her. Her anxiety didn't lessen from walking away. It stayed stagnant.

It wasn't Regina's secret to tell, she reminded herself, and she wasn't ready to listen to her explanation. All Emma could think was how her parents must think differently about her now.

Emma purposely never told anyone. If she could just live life without people noticing that she was different, then so be it.

"Emma." She heard behind her and then a hand on her back. "I-"

"Regina, I just need a few minutes alone." The words fell from her mouth more sternly than she liked. She winced at her harshness and instantly felt bad, which sucked because she was mad. Mad that she trusted Regina with her secret and she just frivolously shared it with her parents.

Regina's warm hand retreated from her back and a coat was hung over her shoulders instead. The gesture meant a lot to Emma, despite that she was upset. In a matter of seconds, she heard the door click shut behind her and Emma deflated. The tears that threatened to fall earlier now cascaded down her cheeks. Heated and raspy breaths invaded the night sky as Emma tried to calm herself down.

Emma hated this part of herself, the vulnerable part that she wished she could crush into a paper ball and toss it off into a trash can and forget. Man, would she pay to forget. It wasn't that simple, though. Many could argue that Emma should be happy and embrace who she was, but she wasn't there yet. Even with Regina's support and love. She didn't feel okay with being transgender. She literally felt like she was walking around in someone else's skin sometimes and that was just so hard to be okay with. Emma just wanted to feel okay and to feel normal.

It was hard for her mind to go back to when she was eleven. It always goes back to then and why she was exceptionally disturbed by her own body. Emma by then knew she had body dysphoria. Her parents had sheltered her, though. They made sure she was treated with respect and care.

But then one day, her mother took her to a new doctor, one that was a closer commute to where they lived. They found out pretty quickly the new doctor wasn't with the times, or so her mother claimed. The part that Emma could never seem to forget was the comment he made right to her face. He said, "You're unnatural."

She thought again, unnatural. Who tells a little girl that she's unnatural? She'd never forget those words and that was one of the many reasons she never wanted anyone to know her secret for fear they'd see her that way.

That doctor made an imprint on Emma. He taught her a lesson that day that not everyone in this world is understanding. His words cut her deeper than she'd like to admit. It was really what happened after he said that to her that really damaged her.

Sometimes the images often haunted her at night in her dreams. She'd never forget the desperation she felt to not be unnatural anymore. At eleven, all she wanted was to be just a normal little girl like everyone else. Even if it meant cutting pieces of herself off. No matter, the pain, no matter how much it'd hurt, she just desperately wanted her body rid of her penis.

Even to this day, she remembers her mother walking into the bathroom, "Emma honey, where's the kitchen scissors?" She'd stopped, frozen in her tracks on her quest for them when she saw Emma hunched over with the blades around herself.

The scissors had thick razor-edged sides. They were the ones that Emma saw her mother cut meat with a thousand times. If she were quick, it'd all be gone, she remembered encouraging herself.

It was her mother's shrill voice that pierced through her and forced her to stop when she started to squeeze the blades closer. She recalled dropping the cutlery on the tiled bathroom floor. She watched them bounce a few feet away from her and closer to her mother. "Emma, what are you doing?" Her mother asked.

"I don't want it anymore." She cried, boy did she cry. She screamed and she fought her mother as she stretched to reach for the scissors desperately.

"You could bleed to death." Her mother told her as she fought off Emma's arms and legs. "Emma, do you understand me? You could bleed to death!" Her once young mother with sleek black hair and smooth skin begged her to realize.

Emma didn't care. She just didn't want to be unnatural anymore. Even adult Emma felt that way. While Regina loved her body and accepted her for who she was, that didn't mean Emma did. In fact, she was far from it and more scared than ever that people finding out her secret could lead to her being an outcast.

A throat cleared next to her. Emma jumped in shock when the older man leaned against the deck's railing next a few feet away. "Regina's upset. Now before you say anything, let me speak." He said, all too wisely.

"I know what you're probably thinking is that she probably called us to just share your personal information-" Emma turned to cut him off, but Henry stopped her by holding up his hand. He waited a few seconds before continuing. "Our daughter, who we love very much, was the black swan of our family. She didn't really mesh with her mother and I. We're different. Regina thought she was adopted for the longest time and I'll tell you that's not the case. She's got her mother's features, that's for sure. Even if she doesn't see it. Anyways, growing up she refused to let Cora or I share our research with her, or talk to her about sex or anything related to it. She grew up a little naive in that sense." He paused.

He coughed into his hand and then looked at Emma as his spoke candidly. "She was scared and confused when she found out your secret. She didn't know what to make of it and called us for help. She's our daughter and even though she's older now, it made us realize we hadn't failed her as parents because she called." He said. He shifted his weight and then continued. "She told us how beautiful you were. She cried, Emma, and she cried. She told her mother and me, 'God, daddy, she's just so beautiful and she's genuine. I care so much for her and she hid this from me.'"

Emma looked down at her feet. Her heart was racing. This was hard to listen to. She hated the thought of Regina being upset.

"Regina told us that she was sure that you weren't female when she touched you. It took her mother about thirty minutes just to get those words out of her. She's a stubborn steel vault. It was hard for her. She's repressed even talking about that kind of stuff with us and then there she was calling us. Cora and I looked at each other and we both knew Emma, that you were as Regina said earlier today, special. We took turns going back and forth explaining as scholars what we knew and what that meant for you and she listened. Regina didn't say much. She admitted at the end of the call just before Regina hung up that she wished she had just known. She felt lied to and mislead. We as her parents knew that was an acceptable feeling to have, but we also knew that while she felt that way, you probably felt afraid. Probably like how you do now. Now I'm only going to say this once, so don't make me repeat myself. Regina loves you and I don't know if you've already told each other that yet, but I've never seen my daughter happier. Please don't hold her telling us against her, all she was trying to do was find answers when she felt like she lacked knowledge. She's a politician Emma, she's a secret keeper. You can trust her, but don't let this get in the way of your relationship." He finished off.

"Dinner is in a half hour. Cora made some homemade ravioli. It wouldn't hurt her feelings if you skipped it, but we'd love to have you there with us, as a family."

His words knocked the air right out of Emma's lungs. All of the fear she felt and vulnerability was wiped away. Henry thought of her as family.

When Emma turned to say she'd be there, she noticed that just as he quietly as he'd come, he was gone.