A flight from Boston to Glasgow (or Edinburgh, she'd take what she could get) was somewhere between six and eight hours long and Scotland was a good five or six hours ahead of Boston. That meant that if she left in the morning, she'd get there late at night. Rosie didn't want to have to find her way through a strange city in the dark, she'd probably end up kidnapped again, but if she left any later, she'd get there even later at night. Her best bet on that front was to leave at night to get there safely in the morning. The only problem with that was that Boston was a good four drive from Storybrooke and there was no way she could sneak off with her mother's car in the middle of the day without her noticing.

Luckily, there was a convenient solution to all this. The following day, her mother had a meeting that conveniently started at three o' clock. This meant that Rosie could pretend at school while she was actually packing and then take her mother's car from the town hall without her noticing until the meeting ended. That would land her in Boston around seven - time enough to catch a nine o' clock flight before her mother caught up with her.

Rosie booked a last minute ticket for the flight in question (one way, she had no idea how long she'd be there for) and charged it to her mother's credit card. She was wary, and prayed her mother wouldn't see the charge until long after she'd left.

The next day, she made her escape, backpack crammed with everything from clothes to passport (she silently thanked her mother for that one. It had never been used before and she had no idea why she'd even gotten it, but it was coming in handy now).

She'd never driven outside of Storybrooke though, and she bit her lip as she pulled out onto the highway. Some hours later, highway and city safely navigated, she parked in the airport parkade and stood for a moment breathing deeply in the shadows beside the car. Then, she steeled herself and walked into the terminal.

It was relatively easy to get through security. The only hiccup was when the attendant frowned over her glasses and asked where her parents were. Rosie smiled sweetly and put on a Scottish accent (it came surprisingly natural to her) and explained that she was here for school and was flying home to her family in the Highlands.

"It's the middle of term." The woman pointed out skeptically.

"Aye. . .er, family emergency." She said, and did her best to look upset. "My sister, she was kidnapped."

Only, Rosie didn't have a sister, only brothers, and she was the one that had been kidnapped, however long ago.

On the plane, due to her late booking, Rosie was wedged between a man in business attire and one who had already fallen asleep. It could have been a lot worse, she thought as she settled in.

Water lapped against the solid hull of a large car ferry, reflecting the blue of the sky. The whir of turbines, a small seaplane gliding over a coastline like paper torn and crumpled, out over a sea spattered with islands like shards of shattered glass.

She stood in a field, mountains rising all around her. Rain damp and windblown, mist swirling over stony peaks and slipping down steep slopes like water.

There were the sharp, strong tones of the bagpipes, the low, rugged tones of a language she thought she knew, an accent once hers.

Two black haired boys stood in a doorway, arms full of wriggling newborn lambs. The downy soft, weightless warmth of a tiny yellow chick in the palm of her hand, and the big, warm eyes of a gray mare. Had they lived on a farm?

The tide hissed over white sand, soft underfoot. A man with a friendly face entered a small house, bucket of fish in hand. The seamen had returned safely from their excursion.

But the peaceful island was gone then with the ferry's horn echoing on the wind. A rain soaked city stood in its place, tall buildings glistening with artificial light as the daylight faded. A dirty house in a dirty neighborhood, whisky and tobacco. Angry voices and cruel hands, and the identical boys nursing violent injuries as they watched with frightened eyes.

Screaming, terror and tear streaked faces. Sirens and voices and these weren't her memories anymore. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think -

A rose like blood and a familiar name tattooed to olive skin over a patchwork of self-inflicted scars.

She woke abruptly. The men on either side of her looked up.

"You alright there, kid?" One asked. "You were muttering in tongues in your sleep."

"Sounded like Gaelic tae me." The other man was evidently Scottish, the accent gave it away. "Do ye have the Gaelic then, lass?"

Rosie frowned. "I - yes, I think I did, when I was very young. I've lost it now, though. Do you?" She asked curiously.

"Me? Och, no. I just know what it sounds like, is all." The Scotsman replied. "Say, lass. What are ye doing flying across the pond alone?"

Rosie bit her lip. The truth couldn't hurt now. "I'm going home. To my brothers."

o0o

It was not, in fact, until she stepped out of the town hall some two hours later that Regina realized her car was gone from the spot where she always parked it. She frowned, glancing around to see if she'd left it another spot, but it was nowhere to be found.

Right then, first things first. She pulled out her phone and dialed Rosie, letting it ring as she looked around. It went to voicemail. Brow furrowed in worry, she sent her daughter a quick text message and dialed Henry.

"Hey mom." He answered. "What's up?"

"Henry, have you heard from Rosie at all today?" She asked anxiously.

"No, why?" His voice came through questioningly. "I haven't spoken to her since I was at the house last weekend."

"My car's gone and she's not answering her phone." Regina replied. "Henry, did she say anything to you then?"

"Yeah. . .she wanted to see an old video of her I have on my computer. She said she wanted to check something but I don't know what. Although, I commented on how she used to have an accent and she got kinda weird about it. Apparently she's been having weird dreams about her past." He explained.

"She mentioned that." Regina replied. "I have to go, Henry, I'll talk to you later. Call me if you hear from her."

They said their goodbyes and Regina ended the call, setting off for home on foot. But the driveway was empty when she arrived and there was no sign of Rosie anywhere, inside or out. Desperate, she walked into Rosie's room in hopes of finding a clue. She did.

Left on the desk was the book. She froze at the sight of her daughter's face on the cover, younger than she'd ever known her.

Rosie's Legacy was the title.

She picked it up and flipped it over, her stomach dropping as she read the back and further as she flipped it open to see the photograph of the twins.

It couldn't be true. They had died, it couldn't be them. But it was Rosie, Rosie who should have been dead when she wasn't, who had cried for her brothers when Regina had told she had none but for Henry, that the boys she had known had only been foster brothers, not real ones.

Rosie who went missing from Scotland at the age of four, who had landed in America at six, who had escaped her captors and begged for help, to go home, to see her brothers again, who had been told, falsely in her eyes, that she was home.

Rosie, who, all the while, had left behind in Scotland a sordid legacy of vanishment and grief and assumed death. Her brothers were left to uphold her memory, never able to let rest a story of abduction and heartbreak, for fear it would be forgotten, that others would suffer without their awareness.

In an instant Regina knew, knew with a mother's sharp intuition, where her daughter had gone. She yanked out her phone and dialed a number, pressing it to her ear.

"Emma, I need a favor." She said, before the other woman had a chance to speak.

Emma was, to say the least, alarmed by her urgency. "What is it?"

"I need you to drive me to Boston, to the airport. Can you do that?"

Emma might have been staring blankly at her phone just then, if only Regina could see her. "I guess so, but why? What's wrong with your own car?"

Regina clenched her phone in her hand impatiently. "It's Rosie. She's taken my car and if what I just found in her room is anything to go by, she's catching a flight to Scotland."

"Hold on, what?! Regina, why would Rosie just take off across the ocean without a word of warning? Are you sure she's not just out with some friends?"

Regina took a breath. "She's looking for something she left behind there. I should never have denied her when she asked to go home. Emma, get someone to cover your shift and pack a bag, and then meet me at my house."

Half an hour later, the two women were sitting in Emma's car on their way out of town, Emma's duffle and Regina's suitcase in the trunk. Regina had shown her companion the book and was now reading from it.

"Oh god." Said Emma, halfway through the latest excerpt. "You mean that actually happened to her?"

Regina nodded. "Yes. I. . .sort of already knew about it. She used to have nightmares when she was little. Whenever I'd ask her what they were about, she'd say 'the bad man was hurting her again'. She would cry for her brothers and I. . .I told her they weren't her real brothers, that she didn't need them anymore."

Emma thought about it. "Well. . .they're not are they? They must have been other foster kids or bio kids of the foster parents, right?"

"No." Said Regina. "It says they moved homes together, they were with her since she was a newborn. That and. . .Emma, Rosie wasn't my only pregnancy, she was just my last. There were. . .others. . .before her. At the very beginning of my marriage, I had twin boys. I had thought they died shortly after their birth, my father told me he'd found them dead in the night the next morning, but now. . .they'd be eight years older than Rosie, it matches up perfectly."

"Not to mention that picture." Emma put in. "They do look like you."

o0o

It was early in the morning when the lights of a city finally came into view below. The plane cruised low over towering buildings and touched down smoothly. Rosie yawned and stretched as they taxied into the gate, preparing to disembark. Once off the plane and safely through security, she went to exchange her stack of American notes for Scottish ones. After that, she stepped out into the pale, dawn light.

The first order of business was finding some breakfast. Then, off to the train station.

She walked away from the airport, dividing her attention between scanning the unfamiliar streets for danger and consulting the map she'd picked up at the tourist info booth. As the sun rose and the city lights began to go out, she made her way to the train station.

Now, low and behold, the airport wasn't even located in Glasgow, and was instead in the town of Paisley, some six or seven miles west of the city. Rosie groaned when she learned that she'd need to take the train back into the city, in order to catch a different one to take her north (the only lead she had on her brothers' whereabouts was a mention of the Hebrides in the book's biography, so naturally she was heading to Oban, the gateway to said islands).

It might be like searching for a needle in a haystack, but then again, it might not be so hard to find a pair of identical twin orphans who were the faces behind such a foundation as Rosie's Legacy. After all, research proved it was quite well known in the UK.

Some time later, as the second train climbed into the highlands, the ancient mountains were blanketed in a soft morning haze. The skies were clear, promising a pleasant day and fair weather. Rosie munched on her breakfast as she gazed out the window, deep in thought.

What would she say to her brothers when she saw them? What would they say to her? Would they even believe she was their missing sister? She thought about the book, how their grief had threatened to swallow them. Did they still hope, or had they accepted her false death as reality?

What if they rejected her as a fake and a liar?

Rosie shook her head as she reached down to the strip of plaid. She'd tied it around her wrist, as it no longer fit around her head. The proof she carried with her was more concrete than their doubt could ever withstand.

o0o

"Well." Said Emma, as they eased between rows in the airport parkade. "There's your car."

Regina's head snapped to the side and she sighed. "Oh gods. She's really doing it. I had hoped. . ."

Emma tried to be reassuring, though it wasn't her strong suit. "Maybe her flight hasn't left yet, or they didn't let her on because she's underage."

They had no such luck, though. Upon questioning the attendant, they found a flight to Scotland had left an hour ago and the next wasn't until tomorrow night.

"Are you quite alright, ma'am?" The attendant asked, eyeing Regina. "You seem distressed."

Regina shook her head. "I'm fine. I need to know if a certain person boarded that flight. It's important."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Can I ask who you're looking for? That's not information we can normally give out."

Regina twisted her purse strap anxiously. "My daughter. She's only sixteen, I need to find her, please." She pulled out her phone and showed the other woman a picture. "This is her."

She nodded. "Alright, I'm going to go sort this out. The gate attendant for that flight should know."

The woman escorted them to a small meeting room and left, returning sometime later with another woman, a man in a security uniform and one who appeared to be a manager of some sort.

"Well?" Regina asked, impatiently.

"The gate attendant was able to confirm that your daughter boarded the recent flight direct to Glasgow. Are we to understand you were not aware of her plans?"

"Of course I wasn't!" Regina cried. "Why on earth would I let my sixteen year old daughter fly halfway across the world on her own?!" She turned to the second woman, evidently the gate attendant. "You're sure it was her?"

"Positive. She stuck out like a sore thumb with that red hair of hers. I found it strange that she was alone, so I asked her about it. She said she was here for school and was flying home for a family emergency. Since sixteen is the legal age in Scotland, I thought nothing more of it." The woman explained.

Regina scoffed. "Family emergency indeed. She hasn't been to Scotland since she was at most six years old, quite possibly four."

"She said her sister had gone missing, possibly kidnapped."

Regina's eyes widened and Emma choked on the coffee she'd picked up at some point. "Did she indeed?"

The gate attendant nodded. "Yes. I take it that was a lie?"

"Of course it was, she hasn't got any sisters." Regina snapped. "And her family is here. I don't know how you could have believed her when she has an American accent."

The manager-man looked at the attendant with a raised brow.

The poor woman stared open mouthed. "I - but she didn't! Cross my heart, she sounded Scottish to me!"

"So you're saying she put on an accent?" Regina demanded, irritation rising.

"She never completely lost her accent, Regina, it would come naturally to her to lean into it." Emma pointed out.

"Okay, hold on." The manager raised a staying hand. "I'm lost, here. Rosie Mills is your daughter, correct? Do you have any documents to prove that?" He asked, looking at Regina.

She froze. She had nothing of the sort. It had never been necessary in Storybrooke, and she'd been in such a rush to find her daughter, that the thought to magic them up before leaving town hadn't occurred to her.

"I left them at home." She said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "That's an eight-hour round trip." She added for context. "When I realized she was gone I panicked and. . ."

The man nodded in understanding. "So she is your daughter, but she was in Scotland as a child? Was she born there? Do you have family there you can contact?"

Regina shook her, at a loss. It was getting late, Rosie would be well out over the Atlantic by now. Alone.

"No. I mean - no, she wasn't born there. We - we have family there, but I've never met them and I've no idea how to contact them. She knows - knew them, though. She's gone to find them." Regina explained.

"I see." Said the man, but the look on his face distinctly suggested otherwise. He glanced at the security officer, who appeared to be smelling something decidedly ratlike.

"Do excuse me, ma'am, but I must ask, is Rosie your biological daughter?"

Regina nodded, answering at once. "Yes. Um, her father didn't want another daughter, so he forced me to give her up at birth. She was in the care of her elder brothers in Scotland for the first few years of her life."

Emma side-eyed her, a silent warning to choose her words carefully. It would be all too easy to talk themselves into a deep hole.

Testament to that, the man spoke. "Her brothers? Beg pardon Miss Mills but how did her brothers end up over there?" It was obvious he was trying to catch her in a lie now.

Best stick close to the truth, then. "They're twins. I was under the impression that they had died shortly after their birth, until recently. I believe my father was responsible for that deception. You see, my late husband was a cruel man, and he would have raised a son in his shadow. My father knew that, and, I suspect, sent them away to protect them." Regina explained.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Halfway across the globe?"

She shrugged helplessly. "I suppose he wanted to be sure their father wouldn't find them. If he were still with us, I'd ask him, but sadly. . ."

He softened slightly. "I see. I am sorry for your loss, ma'am, but I'm afraid I still don't quite understand. You took back your daughter, but not your sons? Did they choose to stay in Scotland?"

Regina shook her head, on the verge of snapping again. "I wasn't aware they were there at all. Rosie found her way back to me alone and unintentionally. She used to cry for her brothers, but I thought they must have been foster brothers or something. She was young and had been through some trauma, you understand -"

At that moment the door opened to admit another security officer. "Sir, a word, please." He spoke.

"What is it? Have you found anything?" The other man pressed.

The second officer glanced at Regina and Emma before continuing. "We've IDed the girl. There is no sign of a Rosie Mills of her age and description existing anywhere between here and New York in recent years, but she's a match for a child who went missing in Scotland over a decade ago. I believe that Rosie-Faith MacIntosh has been found, sir."

The man stared blankly, evidently not familiar with the name, and the second security guard opened his mouth to continue. Before he could, however, Regina pulled out the book and placed it on the table. "She's still my daughter." She implored. "I love her."

o0o

In Oban Bay, the train station was right on the water, beside the ferry terminal. When Rosie stepped out of the carriage, she was immediately welcomed by a cool breeze off the sea and chatter in a dialect that came back to her in a tidal wave of vivid memory.

She stood on the platform with her bottom lip between her teeth, taking it in. It wasn't until she'd started along the waterfront that she realized she had no idea what to do next. Did she get on a ferry, go out to an island? But there were dozens, hundreds maybe, of islands scattered all up and down this coast, and no telling where her brothers might be. Without an endless amount of money, she couldn't simply island hop until she found them, it wasn't feasible. No, her best bet would be to dig for information, talk to the locals.

Someone would know where to find them.

Someone else might call the cops if they happened to realize who she was.

She was not to know that the police had already been contacted by the American airport she'd departed from hours earlier, or that her mother was being detained there under suspicion of kidnapping and affiliation with traffickers. She hadn't even realized she'd managed to evade said police in thus far one airport and three separate train stations.

o0o

Somewhere in Boston, Massachusetts, a police detective was having a field day. First he'd set out to detangle a particularly confused murder case, and then there was that thing about the lost tourists who had supposedly been seen entering a park in the wee hours of the morning with a dog that was apparently not their own.

Now, (and it wasn't even lunchtime yet) there was a runaway teenager who'd hopped on an international flight the previous night. She allegedly had some affiliation with a decade-old cold case in Scotland, and her supposed mother was in for questioning. According to one Detective MacGillvary of Glasgow, the case involved fake foster parents, human traffickers and quite possibly multiple sex offenders. To say nothing of how it surrounded three children who had no apparent biological relations and no known birth records.

His interest was piqued.

"Okay, hold on. The twins were twelve when the girl went missing? The mother said that Rosie was in their care when she was in Scotland."

"That's impossible. They were children, all three in foster care. What else is she saying?" MacGillivray replied.

"Only that the children were in Scotland outside of her knowledge by her late father's hand. Something about protecting them from their father. She says Rosie found her way back to her unintentionally. Apparently, she didn't even realize who Rosie was at first."

"D'ye believe her?"

"Honestly, no. We've found no records of either Rosie's birth, or that of the twins, and the guy she claims was her husband, their father, effectively doesn't exist. That, and how does a lone little girl unintentionally reunite with the mother she's never met across the pond?"

"Aye, it just doesna add up and I dinna believe in coincidences. What's the bloke's name - the father I mean?"

"Leopold Blanchard. An arranged marriage orchestrated by her mother, she said. She claims he died shortly after Rosie's birth, but we found no sign he was ever born, let alone died."

"It stinks, I'll give it that. We'll run the name here and see if anything comes up."

"Good. Have you any clue on the girl's whereabouts yet? The best thing is to find her. If the mother won't talk straight, then maybe she will for likely it's all she knows."

"Most recently she was seen disembarking a train in Oban, but our officer lost her in the crowd. There've been no sightings at the ferry terminal though, so she's likely still in town. I doubt she knows where her brothers live, but she may be running on instinct because she's on the right track."

"I pray she finds them safe, then. Will they look after her, do you think?"

"I know they will. Having met them personally, I happen to know they're some of the best people you could ever meet. Real soft hearts, those two."

"That's a relief to hear. It's always a thing when a kid runs off to find someone they don't know. Like what if they're unknowingly running into the arms of a pedophile or something?"

"Aye, 'tis that. She'll be safe with her brothers, though. They adore her. Anyway, I need tae go, but I'll be in contact. See ye."

With that, they ended the call. Detective MacGillivray, who had worked the Rosie MacIntosh case since its conception twelve years ago, went ahead and made another call.

Meanwhile, some sixty miles away, Donald and Douglas MacIntosh had just returned to port after their most recent fishing excursion. They were just tieing the moorings when Donald's phone rang. With an annoyed grunt, he pulled out his phone and eyed it.

"'Tis an unknown number." He informed his brother, and moved to shove it back in his sporran.

Douglas rolled his eyes. "Damn scammers."

"Aye, right?" Donald replied as they continued their work.

o0o

Hunger drew Rosie into a small waterfront inn with an eatery on the main floor. It was dinnertime by then, and the place was bustling. She wove among the other patrons and stopped in front of the counter. Her stomach growled at the sight of the food being served and eaten all around her.

"W-what can I get ye, lass?" A young boy, about her own age, asked, stammering and blushing at the sight of her.

Between jet lag and walking around town all day, she was too tired and hungry to care. She ordered the night's special - a fat slab of homemade meat pie drowning in mouth-watering gravy - and devoured it. The boy, evidently the son of the woman serving drinks down the counter (who was likely the owner), gawked at her.

"Ye want seconds, lass? We're not supposed to do that, by I could -"

"No thank you." Rosie replied, stuffing a fry in her mouth. "It was delicious, but I'm stuffed. Could I get a room for the night, though?"

He grinned, clearly eager to please her. "Aye, o' course! Jes' for tonight?" He asked, digging around behind the counter in search of a room key.

Rosie considered, before nodding. "Aye, better take it day by day. I'm looking for someone and I don't know how long it'll take me tae find them."

His eyes lit up. "Oh aye? My mam and da' ken everyone 'tween here and Skye. I'm sure we could help!"

Before she could reply, he was calling over his shoulder to the woman at the other end of the counter. She finished what she was doing and came over.

"What is it, Andrew?"

'Andrew' looked back at Rosie. "Who is it yer looking for, lass?"

Rosie bit her lip and twisted her hands together. She'd been asking around all day to no avail. If she wasn't receiving outright no's, she was getting obvious lies from people who clearly knew who she was asking about. It was as if they were protecting someone, but Rosie didn't understand it. Surely they'd want to help a missing person be found, to see a family reunited?

"Um, it's my brothers. Donald and Douglas MacIntosh? They're identical twins -" she started.

"Oh aye, the twins, we ken them." The woman responded, eyes narrowing. "They dinna like wee lassies sculking aboot, pretending at someone they're not. 'Tis disrespectful, no' tae mention hurtful, when the real one is dead. I'll ask ye tae run on home, 'fore I call the police."

Rosie gaped. So this was why. "Y-you mean that people have pretended to be me? To trick my brothers into thinking - but that's horrid!"

"Go home, lassie."

Rosie's cheeks went red and she shoved her hands against the counter. "No. I came all the way across the ocean to find them, I won't go home until I find them. In fact, technically speaking, I am home."

The woman looked at her son, who shrugged. "Who are you?"

Rosie glowered. "For ten years, I was Rosie Mills, but that's not who I am. I am Rosie-Faith MacIntosh."

Several nearby heads turned, faces awash with astonishment. The name was recognized, and why wouldn't it be when it was the face of a well known charity foundation?

Mother and son look at each other, and slowly slide a room key across the counter to her.

"If I find out yer lying." The woman muttered.

"I'm not." Rosie replied, tone sharp.

That said, she turned and stalked through the doorway that lead to the stairwell. One shower, teeth-brush and pair of pajamas later, she collapsed onto the bed in her room and proceeded to fall fast asleep.

The next morning, she woke late to the clink of dishes coming from the dining room below (it was an old building and not entirely soundproof). She shuffled around the room, digging through her backpack and pausing to appreciate the view of the sea from the window. Her hair was a tangled mass atop her head from having slept on it wet, but a brush and a little patience later, it hung in loose ringlets about her shoulders. She then made quick work of dressing and headed downstairs.