A/N: Saw this prompt on tumblr courtesy of reginalovesemma on tumblr and really wanted to try it out. Hopefully I'll be able to do the original idea justice. Enjoy! :)


"Need anything else?" Ruby asked cheerily as she approached the booth that Emma sat hunched over in. The entire town was buzzing about the mysterious woman who had almost magically appeared last night. Emma looked up from the mug of stagnant hot chocolate she was currently staring into.

"Oh, no thanks." She attempted upbeat, but fell flat, instead coming off as awkwardly disinterested.

Ruby wanted details about the blonde. She wanted gossip that she could spread for the remainder of her shift, but the seemingly depressed demeanor the other woman was exhibiting led her to believe she wasn't about to find anything out. With another smile and a disappointed sigh, she continued on to the next table to take orders.

Emma resumed staring back into her hot chocolate. She didn't understand why she was so upset. She should be reveling in the soft booths of the diner and the thought of a warm drink in her stomach after the night from hell she had just experienced, but somehow she couldn't shake the ache that was currently weighing down her heart.

Last night, she had made the long drive to the small town of Storybrooke, Maine with her newly discovered son bouncing up and down in the passenger seat. The whole time he had spouted off some nonsense about his mom being an evil queen and a town full of fairytales. She had mostly just stared ahead at the road with a singular eyebrow raised with a 'yeah, whatever you say kid' kind of look plastered on her face.

He also had it engrained in his mind that she was going to stay with him in Storybrooke. Every time she opened her mouth to object though, his face would twist into this little side smile and was just so damn cute that she would clamp her mouth shut and promise herself to bring it up another time.

When they arrived at the towering white mansion Henry claimed to be his house, a brunette woman Emma assumed to be Henry's mother, worriedly rushed out the door. She instantly reached out to envelop the boy in her arms. Instead, he had shoved her aside and raced into the house screaming.

"You're not my mom. You're the Evil Queen!" His mother had watched him run into the house, but turned back around before he finished his rant.

Once Henry had disappeared, Emma was onslaught with insecure feelings. Henry's other mother was intimidating to say the least. She stood with her hands on her hips, a sophisticated grey dress deliciously encasing her body as her three-inch heels stood firmly on the ground.

All Emma could manage was a slight tip of her head as she breathed out a small "Hi". She mentally slapped herself. That's all you got Swan, 'Hi'?

The brunette woman purred her lips as she looked Emma up and down. Emma stared back, noticing how beautiful the other woman's eyes were. She had never really thought of brown eyes as being special, but somehow these ones stood out.

After one last look, the brunette spun around on those skinny heels and stalked back to her house. Emma was left standing there, stunned.

This is what she'd wanted, to drop the boy off and leave. So why did she feel the need to demand more?

She returned to the car and threw one last glance at the house, specifically up at a lit window on the second floor where a small mop of brunette hair and round face of the little boy peeked out.

Shaking her head, she pressed her foot down on the gas pedal and drove off into the dark.


She woke up hours later in a prison cell. Rubbing her temples, she sat up from the cell bed. Why was she here?

Leaning her elbows on her knees, memories of night before came back to her.

While she was driving, there had been a wolf standing in the middle of the road. Because of it she had swerved into a giant road sign.

Her car may have run off the road? It all seemed very hazy and on top of that she was having trouble concentrating when her head was pounding like an overzealous toddler given pots and pans.

After a while the continuous repetition of the circles over her temples seemed to somewhat diminish the pounding. She was craning her head back and forth, stretching her stiff neck when she heard the clicking of heels on the sheriff station's linoleum floor.

She snapped her head up to see a scruffy man she assumed to be the sheriff as evidenced by the gold star situated on his hip. Next to him stood none other than Henry's mother. Regina, Henry had said her name was.

Regina flipped her perfectly coiffed hair as she strutted towards Emma's cell. Emma, still sitting on the bed, missed the sinister gleam in Regina's eyes since she was too busy staring at the long legs that were approaching towards her at eye level. Once Regina and Graham stood in front of the cell bars, Emma scrambled up and faced them on the other side of the bars.

"It seems that, based on your driving, you may have had too much to drink last night," Graham said meekly. He cleared his throat. Regina's lips curled up in a half smile, half sneer at the blonde woman.

"What? I didn't have anything to drink last night. There's no…there was a wolf!" Emma protested.

"A wolf? We don't have any wolves…" Graham said pensively, but he was cut off by a sharp nudge of Regina's elbow and a pointed glare."Anyway, Regina…" Regina cleared her throat and shot another glare at Graham, "I mean, the town would appreciate it if you could just be on your way."

"Well, what do you think I was doing? I was trying to leave." Emma shifted her eyes suspiciously back and forth between the two.

"Yes, well maybe if you could just continue on that track then we would all be better off…" Graham continued as Regina pulled out a clipboard that was clenched at her side. She held it out and jabbed a finger in the middle of the notebook clipped onto it. Graham leaned over and looked at the clipboard quickly before straightening back up.

"Do you know where Henry is?" he asked Emma.

"What? Are you people crazy? I dropped him off, left in my car, without a drink I might add, saw a wolf, and ran into the sign. That's all." Emma huffed and grabbed onto the cell bars with both hands.

She looked down at her feet as she rested her weight on the bars and stretched her back. The car crash had made her entire body feel like a stiff board. When she looked up, her eyes met Regina's chocolate ones, which happened to be tracking her every movement. Emma broke the eye contact first.

"Okay, well he's missing so we thought maybe you had…" Graham began.

"What? Kidnapped him?" Emma chuckled to herself at the thought, but shut her mouth when she saw Regina's stone cold face. Graham smirked slightly; at least he found her entertaining. Regina tapped Graham on the shoulder and tilted her head toward to door. He took the hint and excused himself from the room.

Once the two women were alone, Regina did what she did best and stared Emma down. This time though, Emma was ready. She tightened her fists around the bars and focused her emerald green eyes on Regina's chocolate ones.

Damn, those eyes again. No Emma, no. This woman is infuriating. Focus on her infuriating-ness.

"What is it you hate about me? I returned your son home to you. You should be thanking me!" Emma said, exasperated, confused, done. Regina looked down at her clipboard and scribbled on it with a pen she picked up from a nearby desk. She flipped it around so Emma could see it. On it she had written a note.

My son is perfectly content here. He has a house, food, and me. All of which is more than you could give him.

"You're writing me notes? What is this seventh grade? Why won't you just talk to me?"

Regina flipped a new page on the pad and wrote something lengthy before flipping it around again. Emma rolled her eyes, but peered at it nonetheless.

You, Miss Swan, are not worth talking to. You are merely a roadblock in our life right now. Both Henry and I would appreciate it if you could get out of the way. I am the Mayor of the town and it would be ill of you to underestimate me. I will have Graham let you out and I expect you to be gone immediately after that.

Emma snarled, the nerve of this woman to treat her as if she was purposely ruining her life. Did she need to remind her that she had returned her son to her in the dead of that night? Why was this not at all relevant? She turned her back to the bars and paced towards the back of the cell.

"Whatever you say, your majesty." she hissed. She decided she'd play along until she got out of the jail.

But after she was free, there was no way she was letting this over confident, entitled, stone cold bitch have what she wanted. She was beginning to understand how Henry could think she was the Evil Queen.

She whipped back around to face the abrasive woman and was more than a little surprised to see the brunette's eyebrows knitted together. Her lips were pressed into a thin straight line and her body seemed to visibly tense as she wrote something on her pad. She paused, debating for a second before spinning it around.

What did you just say.

It was written with a period, not a question mark. Even though she wasn't speaking, Emma could almost hear the exact condescending tone that her words contained.

"I said Whatever. You. Say. Your. Majesty." Emma responded in a very sharp and staccato manner, emphasizing each word in order to drive home the point that she couldn't care less what the other woman thought of her. Regina narrowed her eyes, flipped the notepad under her arm and stalked out of the room.

Moments later, Graham reappeared with a ring of keys spinning in his hand, twirling them around as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. He unlocked the cell and held the door open. Emma stood there with a look of disbelief plastered on her face.

"You're free to go," he said.

"You're kidding me?" Emma nearly yelled.

"Uh..no. You can really go."

"No, I mean that whole scene that just occurred back there."

"Oh. Yes, well, Regina is quite protective of her son."

"Well that's the understatement of the century. What was with the notepad? Some kind of power trip?" Emma ran her fingers through her hair and fixed the collar of her leather jacket.

"No, she's, well don't tell her I'm the one that told you, but she's deaf." Graham admitted with a slight shrug. He spun his chair around and fell into it, picking up his pencil as he began finishing up his police report on Emma's arrest. Emma's mouth tumbled open. Her eyes widened significantly.

"She-she's deaf?" she stammered out.

"Mhm" Graham affirmed, his eyes still cast down on the paperwork.

"Oh god." Emma's stomach dropped.

"Don't let her catch you feeling bad for her. You think you've seen her in a bad mood now…" he trailed off as an apparent memory flashed through his mind. A memory that caused him to cringe.

"But I-I didn't know." she had just verbally attacked the woman for writing notes to her who, well in her own defense she was completely asking for it, but still.

"Bye Emma." Graham looked up from his desk and flashed a smile as Emma made her way out the door.

The minute Emma was outside she shuddered at the pouring rain that was rapidly soaking her clothes. She scanned around and her eyes caught on a little building with a sign that said Granny's Diner. She jogged over to it and let herself in.

And here she was now.

Emma ceased staring into her mug and took a sip of the hot chocolate. It was lukewarm. Great. She sighed heavily and ran her fingers through her hair for the tenth time. When she looked out the window she noticed the rain had stopped.

She saw a small figure walking slowly along the sidewalk next to the diner. It looked a lot like Henry. Wasn't he supposed to be missing?

Emma slid out of the booth, threw down a few bills and jogged out of the diner, shrugging her red leather jacket on one arm while the other pushed open the door.

"Henry!" she called as she jogged after him.


So what do you guys think? Does it have promise? Throw me a review if you've got some time!