A/N: Hey thanks for reading and thanks for waiting for over a week on this... I'm doing so many things so I haven't had the time... can't wait to get all my irons sorted. these chapters take up a lot of time. and Chuck is long as heck bare with me

Why am I in the Intersect?

Stanford University was a buzzling hive of activity. Emma and Regina walked the quad where Stanford fans and UCLA fans both Tailgated before the big rivalry clash.

Emma looked around amazed at how nothing had even changed. Everything seemed the same as it did when she left there.

Kathryn and Fred had set up a barbecue with their friends and would meet Emma and Regina at the stadium when the game began. Just a few Paces away Mal stood vigilant in the quad watching all of the students for possible threats.

"Nice job blending in with the crowd." Emma said to the older woman who was wearing all black in a sea of Red and blue. "Who you rooting for, death?"

Mal Sneered. "Leave the quips to me."

"The library's this way, across the quad." Emma smiled, shaking her head and pointed at a building at the end of the open area.

Her smile faltered and she just stared at the place. "What is it?" Regina asked.

Emma shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I figured this would be tough, but this place is

just a lot to take in, you know?" She sighed and looked around at the crowded yard. "I used to have so much fun here, and then…"

Regina looked at the blonde expectantly. "And then?"

Emma scoffed, "It was the worst day of my life… Getting kicked out of here." She shook her head at the memory. "Having to hear Kathryn's voice when I told her I was coming home. " She stopped walking and looked at Regina. "Packing up all my shit and leaving as Daniel just stood there saying I brought it on myself."

Regina turned introspective, her brow furrowing a bit as they continued to walk again. "Why do you think that Daniel betrayed you?"

Emma Shrugged. "I don't know." She shook her head. "He's had four years to call and set the record straight."

"Now that he's gone…" Regina said softly.

"You know what?" Emma said, shaking her head. "Forget it. Daniel has betrayed a lot of people, hasn't he?"

"Roger that." Mal said as she walked behind the other two women, ever vigilant. They made their way to the library. The three of them looked as casual as the President at a UN meeting. "All right, we have to play this really cool. Magnus has the library book number. He could have beaten us here."

"You think he's in there?" Emma asked as they approached the doors of the building.

"Look, maybe you should stay here." Regina said

"Yeah, 'cause that always works out well." Emma scoffed and reached for the door. "Anyway, you can't find the book without me. I'm going in." She walked closer to the metal detectors and reached for her key card in her pocket. "Oh no!"

"You looking for this? Mal asked, pulling out the key card.

"You stole my id?"The younger woman asked incredulously.

"I borrowed it to reactivate it." Mal answered. "Sorry i couldn't wipe the idiot grin off your face with Photoshop."

The three of them swiped in and made their way directly to the second floor where Daniel would hide his treasures.

When they got there, the area had already been ransacked. There were book strewn all over the floor. "Oh, no." Regina stated.

"We're too late." Mal stated. "Magnus beat us here. He's got the book."

"Hold on." Emma stated and paused to remember something Daniel had done before. She reached her fingers and ran them under the shelf. "Hold on a sec. Got ya." she said when her fingers hit on a latch. She opened it and took a disk out. "The intel."

" Well done."

"The book number was just a way to mark the spot for the professor." the younger blonde said

"Okay, well, let's get out of here before Magnus realizes that the book he has is worthless." Regina said as they started to move, a man came up to them.

"Hey, you, don't move! Emma Swan,"He said, coming up to the group. "You still owe the library $294.68 in late fees.'

Emma paused, "Do you…" She hesitated looking around. "Do you take credit cards?"

"This isn't funny." The man continued. Then there was a large man coming straight for her ready for battle.

"Emma, run." Regina stated. And the blonde turned around and ran out of the library and straight into the crowd at the quad to hide. She crawled under a table and continued going under the cover of tablecloths. Then she ran into Blaize who picked her up. "There you are." Mal said, pulling her closer.

A man ran up behind them"hey, you, freeze!" he said just before Regina pistol whipped him.

"Okay, we have to go." Regina said and they ran off to one of the lecture halls.

"I swear this school has it in for me." Emma said following her handler's leads

"Come on." Mal said, running ahead.

They ran into a lecture room. It was chemistry. Regina stood by the door scouting to make sure no one had followed. "We're safe for now."

Emma turned and found a PC by the lectern and pulled out the disk "I need to see what's on this disk."

"Hey, Em, that is top secret." Regina said leaving the door.

"Yeah, well, so am I," She said, putting the disk into the drive and waiting for it to upload. "and there could be answers on this disk about why I'm in the intersect."

They opened the files and looked through. Regina leaned forward and furrowed her brow. "That's testing data."

"And videotaped interviews." Emma said reading all of the things on the screen at once her mind working as fast as the intersect wants it to. "These are all just students."

"Exactly." Regina agreed "Students that were recruited into the CIA by Fleming. Ten years worth. It's all their current information."

"No wonder Magnus wanted it so badly." Mal muttered. "Foreign governments pay a fortune for that."

"Look at this right next to 2015-" Emma said pointing to the screen. "Daniel Colt… Daniel joined the CIA our junior year?"

"That's enough." Mal said, moving away having heard something just outside the door. Her instincts were telling her something was coming."Now we know what he's after" Regina followed the older woman's lead sensing the same and pulling her weapon.

"no, wait, wait, wait!" Emma said, spotting something on the screen "That's 's me!I'm in here, too."

Both operatives reacted at the same time. But where Mal had shouted. "Click it."

Regina growled a "Don't click it."

Emma was just confused… "I never applied with the CIA." All of a sudden the doors burst open.

Regina shouted. "get down!"

Instinctively the intersect did just that. There was a gun battle raging around her and Emma wondered not for the first time if this wasn't a good time for her to be waiting in the car. She took a look at the screen again and saw all of the current agents at Stanford and she smiled. "I have an idea," She said pulling the disk out of the PC and putting it back in it's jewel box "Get me out of here!"

"Emma, when I say go, run out the side door." Regina said, crouching next to her. "Protect the disk. We'll cover you."

Mal heard the spiel and waited a few seconds before shooting a beaker which caused a plume of smoke to billow. "Go!" Regina shouted and Emma slid out of the side door under the smoke cover to the computer lab.

"All right, we go." She placed the disk into one of the computers and dialed the first phone number he saw. "Okay, on…"

"Hello?" said a feminine voice on the other side.

"Hi." Emma said enthusiastically. Then turned it down a notch. "Hi. Uh, is this… Is this Glenda Mitchell?" No affirmation came from the other end, and of course there wouldn't be. So she just rushed out. "We're in the science building lecture hall. It's an emergency.

Bring lots of big guns."

"I'm sorry?" the other voice stated. "Whoever this is, you've got the wrong number."

Emma frowned. "Crap, there's a code phrase." She shut her eyes and thought back to the professor the day before. "Um… Are you coming to the toga party?"

Then she hung up and called another, and another and another. "Listen we have a situation right now. Bring any ammunition and-or equipment you might have for killing bad guys. Are you coming to the toga party?" Emma tried to make it a s far down the list as she could. " Lots of bad guys are surrounding us. Thank you very much. Are you coming to the toga party?"

Finally having reached the end, she pulled the disk out and heard a projectile cock behind her. "Oh, no." She said ducking right as the arrow whizzed past her head. She noticed another blank CD and switched the real one with the other and continued to crawl knowing that he was most likely going to find her.

Her luck ran out, and she put her hands up. Holding up the blank CD in surrender. "Please don' don't, please don't, please don't, please don't."

Magnus kicked his crossbow, and aimed directly at Emma's eye after he pulled the CD out of her hand. "Don't." a woman said on the other side of the room. "Hah!" She said as she dropped the threat. She jumped in like Wonder Woman, and Emma got a little crush. "You must be Emma Swan… I just got your message. Are you okay?"

Emma breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm just glad you checked your voicemail."

"So…" Kathryn asked once they were settled back home after the game. "How painful was it? Not The game, I mean Stanford."

Emma smiled, popping open a beer and leaning against the fridge. "Well, uh, do you remember the evening with Ruby at karaoke?" The cover of Peter Cetera's "glory of love" that she dedicated to you?"

Kathryn groaned. "That completely ruined karate kid ii."

Emma smirked. "Seriously, though, thanks… Thanks for pushing me." She shook her head then leaned forward on the kitchen island. "After the initial shock and horror, it was a relief to finally go back, you know, say good- Bye."

"Well, I'm proud of you." Kathryn said, squeezing Emma's shoulder. "You know, you faced your past head on. Did you find what you were looking for?"

Emma shrugged. "Almost."

"You'll get there."

Emma wandered over to her bedroom and put the disk. The original in her PC. she wanted to see what else was in there about her. Before she could click her link. Regina appeared at her bedroom door. "You didn't think we'd let you keep that, did you?"

Emma sighed. "I need to know, Regina." She turned and looked at the woman leaning against the door frame pleading with her silently.

Regina dropped her gaze and nodded. "Okay Emma." She said and moved closer to watch with the blonde.

Emma clicked the link and what appeared was a video of Fleming's office. The bald man set up an interview with her. "Test subject . This will be her first interview."

The professor turned away from the camera, and reached for the intercom at his desk. "Send Emma in."

But Emma didn't walk in…

"Daniel…" Fleming said, staring at the young man that had walked into the room. "This isn't a good time. I'm waiting for another student."

"Emma Swan?" Daniel asked, "She never got your message."

"What are you talking about?" Fleming said.

"You put Emma on the CIA recruitment track." Daniel said. Emma thought Daniel sounded a bit jealous, but really the whole thing was confusing her.

"It's not up to me, Daniel," Fleming argued. "They want her for the Omaha project."

"But that's a military operation." Daniel said, upset. He shook his head. "They'll turn Em into…"

"I'm required to send all the top test results to the agency."

"I want my friend out of this."

"She's a perfect candidate." Fleming argued, "Keywords in his essay responses correlate to 98% of the subliminal images in the exam."

Daniel shook his head. "You don't get it… Emma's a good person. She's got too much heart for this kind of work. She's no operative. You can't put her out in the field. She won't survive."

"The agency is not gonna let go of a recruit this promising." Fleming insisted. "The amount of information she can retain? They're not gonna give her a choice? She's in no matter what."

Daniel looked upset and was formulating an idea. He stood. "What if he cheated on the exam, copied all the answers… Then it would invalidate the results, wouldn't it?"

Fleming faltered. "Yes."

"Good." Daniel stated. "Now you're going to help me, professor."

Emma leaned back at the end of the video… "Bryce framed me for cheating...To save me." She shook her head, a tear escaping her eye. "Why didn't he just tell me that to begin with?"

"He couldn't," Regina said softly. "They had already recruited him."

Emma cleared her throat and wiped her eyes. "Well, if he had a good reason for getting me kicked out, maybe he had a good reason to break into The intersect, too."

"Maybe he had a good reason for sending it to you." Regina said softly.

"I just wish I could talk to him." She shook her head. "It must have tore him up to not be able to tell me."

"No one can know about this." Regina said and reached for the PC. She pulled out the CD "For your own safety, okay?"

"Sure." Emma said, watching as Regina took it. "No one would believe me anyway.

Emma raced out of her room to go get the box of Stanford mementos before the garbage truck came and took them.. Especially the one of their group of friends on the quad. She thought back to when she met Daniel. She had just come out of a coding class trying to figure out her project when this jock looking kid came up to her. "Hey, are you in double-e 131?" Emma looked up at the handsome guy and blushed. "It's pretty brutal, huh?"

She looked down at her textbook and nodded. "Oh, yeah… Yeah, i…" She shook her head shyly. "The only reason I signed up is 'cause I'm building my own version of, uh...

It's kind of embarrassing actually."

"What?"

She bit her lip, then said. "You don't remember that old computer game, Zork, do you?"

He smirked. "You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

She laughed. "Holy crap, you do remember Zork."

"I love that game." Daniel laughed with her. "I mean I haven't thought about it in a while."

"Oh, it's probably a good thing." Emma said

"I disagree." Daniel said. "You know the world belongs to us geeks."

The blonde girl shrugged. "Alright… Still, you know, text-based computer games don't exactly play with the chicks."

"Well you're a girl… plus, This girl Lilly on my floor is nuts about Everquest."

"Are you serious?"

"You should meet her, She's into Chicks.. Are you?"

"I'm … I'm into guys too." Daniel smirked.

"Come on, let's go snatch the cool geek before she gets someone else." He stated.

"Right now?" Emma asked.

"She's over in the quad."

"Cool." She picked up all her stuff and followed Daniel. "I would very much like to meet her."

"Need some help?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine." Emma said getting a handle on everything. "I just, uh...You know… College...I'm-i'm...Hi, I'm Emma, by the way."

"Daniel." he said with a wink. "Nice to meet you, Emma."

" , nice to meet you."

They were close from that day until the day Daniel had betrayed her. And now it turned out that he hadn't. She held the picture to her chest. And walked back to her apartment her mind filled with the handsome jock.