WAS IN THE SPRING (THEN SPRING BECAME WINTER)
CHAPTER ONE
SUMMER 2011
Emma Swan. Daughter of no one, mother of Someone, ex-con, college dropout, part-time bounty hunter.
Emma Swan, whose surname is nothing but a fairy tale, the product of a nine-year-old girl's desperate hope for a happy ending.
Emma Swan, who improvises as a magician when her bails are particularly hard to catch.
What she's doing right now is precisely that. She's currently in the middle of State Street in Boston – the same street she's performed in for the past year-and-a-half, ever since she's found out that her innocent looks and natural propensity at deceiving people could be more fruitful than she'd first imagined. It's the busiest street of the city, the infinite passers-by desperate for a distraction from the repetitive string of clothing stores, bars and buildings. Her target is no different.
She walks on the sidewalk along with the unstopping stream of people, nothing more than another face in the crowd, watching her pray from afar and blending in perfectly until –
Poof! – a cloud of white fog, handily provided by Halloween stores smoke bombs, envelops her and elicits a choir of "Aah!", "Ooh!" and a wide variety of imprecations from both pedestrians and drivers who are forced to stop their vehicles because of the suddenly-compromised visibility.
The area immediately around her has cleared, the more-curious-than-scared bystanders now facing her, forming an almost-perfect circle around her automatically. The fog is dispersing, its particles floating away and allowing the traffic to resume its flow, which doesn't happen, because even the annoyed drivers are now abandoning their cars and trying to peek through the sea of heads, desperate to understand what all the commotion is about.
And as the smoke finally clears, revealing a blonde ponytail and anonymous clothes, Emma starts her performance.
Eye contact is the most important part, she has learned over time, and she surveys the crowd in search of the man she's seen countless times in pictures, mostly accompanied by a four-digit number: the amount of money Nick's Bail Bonds will give her once she catches the guy. There he is. He's between an elderly woman and an attractive brunette, and as soon as his gaze locks with Emma's, she's sure she's going to succeed.
"Welcome!" she bids, a wide smile plastered on her face that, she hopes, also reaches her eyes. "I assume you've seen countless magic shows, haven't you? Always the same: a dude turning a 'magic wand' into a bouquet of flowers, pulling a bunny out of a top hat, making a napkin disappear in his fist.
"If that's what you were expecting from my show, then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.
"You see, I don't do tricks." She interrupts her opening monologue to address specifically the young children gathered in the front row, excitement spilling from their wide grins and bright eyes. "I make real magic." To crown her statement, with a flourish she produces a deck of playing cards in the palm of her hand – and, right on cue, the children erupt in gasps of bewilderment and elation.
Turning her attention back to the rest of the crowd, she inquires, "I will need some help for this part of the show. Are there any volunteers?" The audience looks uncomfortably at each other, some muttering encouragements to their companions but nobody actually offering to join Emma at the center of attention. "Come on, don't make me choose…"
Once again, the only reply she receives is a shy silence, which she had anticipated, of course, and is now going to use to her advantage.
The man she's here for is looking at her. For the second time, their gazes meet, and Emma makes sure to hold it for a second before pronouncing, "You." She doesn't break eye contact until he has shuffled his way through the crowd and reached her, and even then it's just for a split second – to glance briefly at the woman who's followed him but stopped at the front row, the same brunette who was standing next to him earlier. Emma looks at her because the man's profile hadn't mentioned a protective girlfriend, when she had accepted the case from her boss, and it angers her. She should know details as relevant as this, they're essential to the approach she's going to take with her targets. A girlfriend is going to be a problem.
But she will figure something out – she always does.
Finally diverting her attention from the woman, Emma looks back at the man and asks, "What's your name?" as if she doesn't already know.
"Ryan."
"Everybody give it up for Ryan!" she announces, and the audience excitedly claps its support.
At that, Emma spreads out the deck in her hands, making sure all of the cards are facing down and Ryan can't see any of them, and orders, "Pick a card – any card," because there's nothing more cliché than that, "look at it and show it to the crowd – but not me."
He wordlessly complies, and as he does, Emma takes a deep breath. She mentally prepares for what's about to happen and, as she exhales, she snaps her fingers.
The world around her stills.
She doesn't have much time, now; barely enough to look around at the unmoving people around her – some caught mid-blink, others completely absorbed in the performance, with their eyes transfixed on either Ryan or Emma herself. She can hear the honks of cars in the distance, because even after twenty-eight years of practice she hasn't mastered her powers enough to stop time further away than a two-mile radius from her. Not without completely draining her vital energy, anyway.
She almost jumps when her gaze lands, once again, on that woman – the brunette, the potential girlfriend – because she's looking straight into Emma's eyes, and she could swear she hadn't been doing that before. She would have noticed those eyes. It would be impossible not to – they are so alive, so full…
But she can't afford to dwell too much on those thoughts, because her heartbeat is already starting to quicken and her head to spin; so she flashes a look at the card the man has been showing the crowd for the past twenty seconds (but really, barely an instant) and snaps her fingers once again, triggering that portion of the world back into motion.
Continuing her performance, Emma slips Ryan's card back into her deck, puts it aside and makes a show of touching his temples with her forefingers and pretending to concentrate, before announcing, "Two of spades!"
The cheering and applauding of the crowd is oddly encouraging; it boosts her confidence, even though she knows very well that the whole show is a sham. The praise, the approval that the audience is giving her is something she has longed for her whole life; growing up in the foster system, being bounced from a group home to another has never allowed her to make someone proud. Now, despite knowing that it is completely based on a lie, she revels in the appreciation shown her by the group of complete strangers in front of her. She knows it's silly, but she can't bring herself to care.
That's why she allows herself a couple more moments of glory. In a rush of recklessness, she pushes off her duty as bail bondsperson and shows off for a little while longer, engaging in a couple more tricks, this time without the aid of Ryan, that have the crowd absolutely enamored with her and her skills.
Nonetheless, Emma is quick to get back on track, her professional persona back in control.
"Alas, this show is nearing its end," she declares. "Although it might not seem like it, my talents are not limited to sleights of hand. In fact, I am primarily competent in something very different: I am particularly good at stealing." The crowd gasps quietly and some murmuring begins.
"Oh, no, there's no need to check your pockets or purses – I don't steal objects. I steal people." The crowd is silent, hanging onto every word spilling from Emma's mouth. "Ryan, would you please join me again?" The man hesitantly walks back to Emma, who asks, "Tell me, are you here with someone, today?"
"No," is his reply, which leaves Emma confused, because she thought the brunette was in some way associated with him. She's not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, and since that saves her the trouble of having to figure out a way to get rid of her, she is more than happy to accept such luck.
"Wonderful. Then, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid this show is finally approaching its end. And what respectable magic show doesn't culminate with a grand finale?
"It's not going to be a flock of doves taking flight or a curtain dropping. I am going to make this man and myself disappear." She laughs at the worried looks sent her way. "Don't worry, it's completely safe.
"I'm sure most of you don't believe I can do this." The statement is met with nods of confirmation, so she continues, "You see, this is not about the magic per se; it's about attention, about timing and…"
She pauses dramatically. "… Surprise."
White smoke engulfs her and Ryan, this time provided only by her powers, rather than gimmicks. The last thing Emma sees before teleporting away is a wonderstruck crowd and that brown-haired woman, staring directly at her, utterly unfazed.
The bug needs repairing.
Her beautiful, trusty bug had left her stranded that morning, refusing to move from its spot in the underground garage of her apartment building, so she had had to call the mechanic. "Something wrong with the engine," he had said, and proceeded to tow the car away and charge her five-hundred dollars in advance. That was half of what she had made by getting Ryan in jail the previous day.
That's why she's currently sitting at a bar, opposite a new target her boss has assigned her, delivering her order to the waiter: she needs money.
Though, no magic shows, this time around. It's been a tough decision to make, but a necessary one nonetheless.
That woman Emma had seen the previous day had left her uneasy; she had spent the better part of that morning – and of that night she has a feeling, though she can't remember exactly – thinking about those eyes. Eyes of a brown so dark they almost looked black, and not surprised in the slightest.
Emma is afraid, to be honest. She is afraid of what that woman might know, of what she might want from her, of who she is.
Emma's powers have been a part of her life ever since she was little. She doesn't actively remember them, but she does remember foster family after foster family giving her up as soon as magic came into play. Which is understandable, considering that magic isn't even supposed to exist in this world. They were afraid, she imagines. Afraid of the incidents that could happen, of the power she had that was entirely out of their control. Surely they didn't care enough to think that maybe she was scared too.
On the bright side, the fear of being sent away eventually overcame the fear of her powers, urging her to control them rather than repress them; and by the age of eight she had already mastered them enough to keep them hidden, even from the foster brothers she shared a bedroom with.
Then, in her teens, she made the mistake of reading the X-Men comics, where mutants were persecuted, captured and experimented upon, and the paranoia of meeting that same fate scared her enough to drop out of the foster system and live on her own, away from anyone who could potentially harm her or discriminate against her. Until she met him, that is; the only person she had ever truly gotten attached to, the man who ran away as soon as she ignored the fair warning those comics had imparted to her and opened up enough to show him what she could do. She was pregnant and seventeen years old, when he left her; she has made sure not to trust anyone ever since.
During the past ten-or-so years, the complete absence of anything even remotely hinting at the government knowing about her powers and wanting to conduct experiments on her had pretty much erased her fears. Six years ago, after having saved up enough money to afford an apartment on her own, she resumed practicing her magic; and whilst it had begun in the safety of the four disheveled walls of her flat, soon enough she had become so proficient that her abilities to control time and travel through it couldn't be limited to such a restricted area. Like Icarus, she wanted to fly higher, to put herself to the test and see how close to the sun she could get before her wings started melting off.
That was when she decided to hide her powers in plain sight. They had turned out to be profitable, an easy way to get a target, and she knew that pretending to be a magician would be the perfect cover: society was entirely too skeptical to think that there was more to her performances than simple tricks.
But now – now that her old paranoia of Adamantium being forced inside her body and such has come back in full force – she has decided to lay off the magic shows, at least for the time being, and avoid drawing attention to herself. Maybe she has flown too close to the sun at last, and needs the wax of her wings to re-harden, before going back up.
She's back to the old "pretend date" approach – boring, but safe. She hopes.
It's only with half an ear that she listens to what Jeremy is saying; she's too wary to pay his words full attention. She has been ever since her last show, and the situation is getting almost unbearable.
But then, her brain registers her date's next question, a confused, "Hey, do you know that woman?" that has her heart rate instantly quicken. When she follows his gaze, she sees the very object of her thoughts sitting at the counter and talking to a waitress. "She's been staring at you since she arrived. I feel like she heard me, just now, and looked away on purpose."
Well, now what?
Emma's heart is pounding – she's sure one could see her shirt moving with each palpitation. Should she go up to her? Confrontation has never been her strongest suit, but staying in the dark doesn't sound like much of a solution, either. If the brunette did effectively tell her she worked for the government, at least she could run away or put up a good fight. She's pretty sure she could win, with her kind of powers.
Well, it's not like she has much to lose, anyway. Here goes nothing…
As Emma replies with a determined, "I do," the woman looks away from the waitress and straight into her eyes. "I'll be back in a second."
Emma heads over to her, feigning a confidence that she doesn't have, and sits down on the stool immediately to her left, desperately hoping her heartbeat isn't as loud as she thinks.
"Why are you stalking me?" She's proud of the bluntness of her voice, of how it doesn't quiver for a second.
A sharp eyebrow arches and plump, red lips – marked by a barely-there scar – part. "I beg your pardon?" The woman looks sincerely confused, and borderline affronted at receiving such an accusation from a stranger.
Has Emma considered the fact that maybe she has just been reading a bit too much into this? That the brunette in front of her might be just some random woman from Boston, innocent as she claims to be and as far from knowing about her powers as the next person?
She's starting to blush in embarrassment under the woman's scrutiny, and she's so sure of having just made a fool of herself that she snaps her fingers just to have enough time to make up a good enough excuse to justify her behavior. 'I thought you were someone else' might work, right?
But then, although everyone and everything around her is unmoving, stuck in the moment Emma has decided to elongate, she sees the woman's lips curl upwards just slightly, in a knowing smirk that has Emma's skin prickle with worry and frustration, and she realizes she hasn't gotten anything wrong at all.
This woman is aware of Emma's powers and immune to them.
Emma might just be in even more trouble than she'd initially thought.
As Emma goes on gaping, her focus starts to fade, until the world is back in motion. The brunette turns her body towards Emma's and crosses her legs. She waits patiently for Emma to gather her bearings, and after a few more moments of hesitation, the blonde manages to croak out a wary, "Who are you?"
"My name is Regina Mills," the brunette promptly replies. "But that is of little importance. I think a more appropriate question would be why am I here, don't you agree?" At Emma's blank stare, Regina rolls her eyes. "Close your mouth, dear, you're drawing flies."
Emma complies immediately, a little flushed from having made a fool of herself. Nevertheless, she can't muster a proper sentence – her brain doesn't seem like it wants to collaborate, at least not for the time being. The bar is spinning – or is it her head? – and she feels floaty in a way that makes you wonder, for a split second, if you're dreaming.
Yet no, the woman in front of her is perfectly still, if not for the fingers tapping impatiently against the counter, as everything else twists and turns and…
"Are you quite done?" Regina snaps.
Doing what? Emma wants to ask, but a quick glance around is enough to answer. She realizes, as her mind finally starts to clear, that the people around her are, in fact, moving back and forth – only not because her head is spinning, but because she has been rewinding and fast-forwarding time for the past few minutes.
Emma finally manages a small, "Sorry," and holds onto that small bit of rationality just enough to take control of her powers. "What do you want from me?"
The other woman looks quickly from side to side, her eyes stilling on the waiter right behind the counter and close enough to hear what they were saying. As Emma turns to look at the young redhead, she sees her stealing glances at them, clearly eavesdropping.
"Let's take a walk, shall we?" Regina prompts, and before she knows it, Emma is being dragged out the bar, her arm enveloped in the firm yet gentle grip of the other woman's hand.
"Hey!" she protests, but before she can elaborate her complaint, she hears someone call her name.
"Emma!" Her date is running out the bar, confusion displayed on his features, clearly not understanding why she would leave without telling him.
"Sorry, dear. Miss Swan is busy and won't be able to conclude your date. Get lost."
"What? No!" Emma forces her arm out of the other woman's grasp, annoyed by her patronizing attitude. "I'm not going anywhere with you, lady."
"You wanted to know why I'm here, did you not? How do you expect me to humor you, if you don't allow me to take you somewhere secluded enough to avoid having an audience?"
"And how do you expect me to trust a complete stranger who not only knows my name, but is also immune-"
"Shut up," another frantic look around. There's nobody near them, and Emma's target isn't close enough to hear what they're discussing, but Regina insists anyway. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. Not in public."
"Listen, lady," Emma says, a hand automatically running through her hair, "I want to finish this date more than I want to listen to you. Whatever it is you want from me, I am not interested."
A cold, calculated façade overtakes Regina's features, annoyance covering the offense that Emma still manages to see. She crosses her arms on her chest, lifts her chin up and defiantly says, "We shall see."
It's been three days since Emma's date with Jeremy. She has delivered him to Nick and received her part of the bail, which means she isn't broke anymore. Regardless, she's on edge, because it's also been three days since she has last heard from that Regina Mills, or since she has last seen her, and she hasn't been able to keep her mind off of her.
She's been wondering whether or not she has made the right choice by not listening to what the other woman had to say. After all, if she had wanted to harm her, she would have done so. Unless she weren't planning to come back now, maybe followed by a trail of government agents ready to neutralize Emma, in case she put up a fight.
It's not that she is scared, per se. Yes, the fact that Regina was completely unaffected by her time-bending powers is worrying, but Emma is sure she can take her anyway. She is used to hand-to-hand, after all, and Regina is a fairly small person. Like, at least one whole inch shorter than Emma.
Yes. She can definitely take her.
She's running some errands as these thoughts swirl through her mind. After a quick run at the grocery store (she is out of Froot Loops, and the situation was so tragic earlier that morning, that she even skipped breakfast) she's now at the Laundromat down the street, because even public washing machines are better than her building's.
More than once, during the boring-yet-reassuring repetitiveness of the past three days, Emma has found herself craning her neck and turning her head in hopes of spotting Regina Mills' luscious, bouncy bob, or straining her ears whenever she heard a low, husky female voice.
Today is no different. She is currently sitting on top of an unused washing machine, a crossword puzzle in hand as she desperately tries to kill time. There is nobody she can talk to. Every other time she has found herself in a similar situation, she made small talk with whoever was stuck with her. Alas, this time, the only other living thing in the room is a rat that's been running back and forth for the past five minutes, and as much as Emma is tempted to try and prove herself wrong, she doesn't think he's much of a conversationalist.
Maybe it's her constant need to have something to keep her entertained that makes having nothing to do particularly difficult to bear. And maybe it's exactly this that urges her to carefully look around, move in front of the only working washing machine so that nobody can see it from outside, and speed up time.
She limits the enchantment to that room only, constantly casting glances around to make sure nobody is close enough to risk being caught in that time-warp. She doesn't think anyone can tell something's off, since the entire room is perfectly still, if not for the washing machine and that rat, but she keeps checking anyway, for good measure.
It's for that reason that she jumps in surprise when she hears a voice behind her comment, "Well, isn't that convenient?"
"How- when- how did you get in here?" Emma inquires, her eyes now glued to the woman that's been haunting her standing casually next to the dryers. "I was just watching the entrance; I haven't heard nor seen anyone come in…"
"Let's say I have my ways," is Regina Mills' response, as cryptic as it is dismissive. "Good morning, Miss Swan."
Emma is lost in disbelief. Here this woman is, suddenly popping out of nowhere and greeting her as if the circumstances of their encounter were perfectly normal. And the worst part of it is that Emma doesn't mind.
What she does mind is how bluntly rude Regina Mills' response was, and the fact that she got distracted, therefore the room is no longer in fast-forward. The rat is sitting in its corner and chewing something at its ordinary speed; the washing machine is still rumbling, but not as frantically as a few moments earlier.
So, with the resignation of someone who didn't really put up much of a fight, Emma bids back, "Good morning, Miss Mills." There's something so oddly wrong in that title that Emma feels the need to check Regina's finger in search of a wedding ring, wondering if maybe her subconscious had registered one and is now telling her that it's Mrs. Mills, instead.
The woman's fingers are bare, alas, but the answer to Emma's troubled thoughts arrives quickly. "It's actually Mayor Mills," Regina says, taking Emma aback.
"Thomas Menino is the mayor, not you."
There it is – the eye-roll that has been stuck in Emma's mind since her first conversation with Regina. "Not the mayor of Boston, of course!" And Emma can feel very, very distinctly that the brunette's next words are going to change her life completely. "Storybrooke, Maine. That is where I come from."
So much so that she teleports away before Regina can add anything else, the clothes still spinning in the washing machine, the crossword puzzle right next to her cereal box completely forgotten.
Emma doesn't want her life to change. Which is why, she decides, she is going to avoid Regina Mills.
And she really tries. It's not her fault the woman seems to know exactly where she is, all the time. Nor that she is no longer able to think about something that doesn't involve tan skin, dark eyes and plump lips.
So the woman is attractive. Big deal. That's not the reason why she can't get Regina Mills out of her mind.
This is the first time in her whole life that Emma is somewhat close to finding out who she is. She does realize that her powers aren't fortuitous, that they are linked to where she comes from. Maybe it's another planet, her own personal Krypton; maybe it's something else entirely. The fact that this woman is apparently (apparently; Emma still doesn't trust her in the slightest) harmless and yet aware of her abilities might mean that she knows something about her that Emma herself doesn't. Regina might have powers too.
Regina might know her parents. And the very thought scares her shitless.
So, when Emma had decided to avoid the woman, she had anticipated that her mind would still regularly host the thought of the mysterious lady; what she hadn't foreseen was…
Well, her clothes neatly folded just outside her front door, for one. She almost tripped over them on her way out of her studio apartment, just a couple of hours after having fled the Laundromat. Three plastic bags neatly (and unnecessarily) labelled 'Pants', 'Shirts' and 'Underwear', God – Regina had waited for the laundry machine to finish before putting everything in the dryer and even folding it. Not even Emma does that, and they're her clothes.
Then, Emma realizes that Regina is a stranger, yet seems to know where she lives – and she only goes as far as moving the bags inside with her foot, before closing the door behind her, double-locking it and heading for a bar. She needs tequila.
The following handful of days goes by swiftly as ever. The routine of Emma's everyday life remains completely unaffected by unsolicited visits from the brunette, and Emma doesn't stress out about it. Yes, she's in a mood. It's probably only PMS, she tells herself, ignoring the voice at the back of her mind that reminds her it's only been a week since her last period.
When a whole week passes, Emma's way of handling the situation shifts from obsessing over Regina Mills (or, in Emma's words, 'Occasionally wondering about her whereabouts', which is as euphemistic as it can possibly be) to full-on denial. "It was only a figment of my imagination," she repeats like a mantra, sure that by the end of the day she will have convinced herself.
As she rolls out of bed on day eight, Emma is positive that she will never see the mysterious woman again.
Then she finds her snooping around her kitchen, the stove on for the first time since Emma has moved in, and what suspiciously looks like pancakes frizzling on a pan.
"Good morning, Miss Swan," Regina Mills bids nonchalantly (and somewhat sarcastically, as if she wouldn't waste time with pleasantries, in normal circumstances), for the second time since they've known each other, as she inspects a syrup bottle to check if it's expired.
Emma – barely-awake, caffeine-deprived Emma – seriously considers the possibility that the woman might be a robot, with a limited amount of pre-programmed sentences that she's able to enunciate, a lock-picking set hidden beneath her fingers and fake flawless skin. She also doesn't consciously register the subtle relief that floods her at the presence, what with her brain being kind of fuzzy from both exhaustion and confusion.
What she does register – and it hits her like a shockwave, blasting her brain into full awake-mode – is the bitter, heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee, and she lunges at it like an addict at his favorite drug.
As she pours out the contents of the coffee pot into two mugs, wordlessly offering one to Regina, she wonders what question she ought to ask first. How did you get in? should be the obvious answer, but it's not exactly the most pressing one, at the moment.
What do you want from me? is also a very crucial topic to tackle, yet Emma isn't sure she really wants to know. She wasn't kidding when she said that she didn't want her life to change. Changes give her anxiety, so she tends to stay as far away from them as she can.
She settles for the next best thing. "Shouldn't you be back in Maine, you know… mayoring and stuff? Isn't ruling a town more important than making breakfast for a complete stranger?"
"Not presently," is the only answer Regina is willing to give, and she lays the last pancake on a plate before joining Emma at the coffee table – the only available surface for a meal, considering the lack of a dining table.
As soon as Emma takes the first bite, she regrets it. With her mouth still full, she mumbles, "These aren't poisoned, right?" which is probably the most useless question in the world. It's just that nothing can possibly be this good without backfiring… And Emma's life had been full of things that had eventually ended up being too good to be true. Her skepticism is justified.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Regina chastises, exasperation and disgust distorting her features. "It would be quite counterproductive for me to poison these pancakes, considering I've only made you breakfast to make sure you wouldn't run away this time."
Emma instantly chokes on the food she's chewing, entirely taken aback. "How could you possibly know that I like food that much?"
To Emma's surprise, a faraway look dominates Regina's otherwise fiery eyes. With a wistful smile, "Lucky guess," she says.
The answer is so cryptic that Emma's first instinct is not to believe it; that there has to be some CIA-level stalking involved. But Regina's entire demeanor has shifted, the confident, imperative woman has recoiled, leaving a broken heart in her place.
It doesn't last for longer than a second; but it's enough for Emma to see it and realize that this woman isn't here to hurt her.
"Why are you here, Regina Mills?" she asks at last, resigned yet slightly accusing, dreading the answer but fully aware that she can't go on avoiding it.
"I'm here because I need to travel back in time, and you're the only person who can help me."
Well. This is unexpected. "O-kay," Emma says, her confusion now slowly turning into a headache. "Uh, why would I help you? You show up out of nowhere, stalk me, break into my house and- how do you even know about me?"
"You're not the only person with extraordinary abilities, Miss Swan. There are thousands of us – all residents of the town I rule, Storybrooke. You are… an exception."
"Wait, us? Do you have powers, too?"
Okay, so this eye-roll thing is getting old pretty quickly. "Indeed," says Regina, and right on cue she produces Emma's phone from the bedroom, an incoming message flashing on the screen and a cloud of purple smoke slowly dissipating. "Here you go."
Emma is a bit too dumbfounded to do anything but take the phone she's offered. At least that explains how Regina got into her apartment. The only person who would text her is her boss, anyway, and if he has a new bail jumper for her – well, it'll have to wait. She pockets the phone without even opening the message.
"Well, if you have magic, why would you need me?"
"I need you because you are the only person I know who can travel through time. These type of abilities are… different, according to the person who has them. Teleportation and telekinesis are quite common – nearly everyone can master them; but each one of us also has a more specific skill, much more powerful than the others. Foresight, telepathy, shape-shifting…"
Emma takes a moment to let all that sink in. "And I don't suppose you'll tell me why you need to travel back in time, will you?"
The sly smile she receives in response answers the question. "You still haven't told me how you found out about me," Emma points out a moment after – to no avail, because the brunette only arches a brow. "Listen, lady – you gotta give me more than that, if you want my help. You clearly don't like me, you look like you'd rather eat my pancakes than ask someone for their help, and you've been all cranky every time I've seen you. I still don't trust you, and as long as you avoid answering my questions, I'm not going to."
"You're right," says Regina, taking Emma aback. "This was an absolute waste of time." She raises from her spot on the couch and, without sparing a second look at Emma, she strides out of the apartment, the front door slamming shut behind her and Emma swimming deep in open-mouthed astonishment.
A/N: You guyyys it's been a while but I'm back! This story was originally written as part of this year's Swan Queen Supernova on AO3, but I figured I'd share it with you here on Fanfic, too. One chapter a day for a total of six, 31k words of gayness. I really hope you'll like it. X