Emma sat slouched over her coffee at Granny's, her mind racing with the memories Mary Margaret had revealed to her a couple nights ago. A part of her felt grateful for having some of the clouds part from the mysterious past of Regina Mills, but she couldn't help but shake the feeling of guilt for hearing about it from someone other than Regina herself. She flicked the handle of her coffee mug and heaved a large sigh before taking a deep sip with a low hum.

The bell of the diner chimed and out of mere habit, Emma looked up to see who had entered- feeling her breath catch in her throat, the dark silhouette of the Mayor appeared in the early morning light. Emma hunched lower in her seat suddenly overcome by a wave of nerves dashed with a jigger of nearly insuppressible compassion. As she watched Regina wait at the counter for her coffee, it took every fiber of her self-control to not leap from her seat and wrap the woman in her arms.

She watched the brunette impatiently tap her fingernails across the counter. In what would normally be perceived as a mundane gesture, Emma watched Regina's motions with a whole new perspective brought upon by the terrible gift of enlightenment. Every tiny action from the brunette was now being calculated and weighed by the blonde slouching in the corner of the diner.

Squinting, Emma gazed beyond the meticulous extracts of the Mayor's invisible safeguards- unearthing the years of carefully constructed shields to reveal the small, helpless little girl in the baby blue dress frantically looking around with her wide, beautiful brown eyes full of fear. With a small smile, Emma remembered that brunette girl she met on the beach, looking so beautiful and so lost. Her smile quickly vanished as she traced the layers of invisible damage inflicted by Cora Mills. Anger boiled in her stomach, the venom stinging her veins, exiting from her fingernails as they make deep trenches in the surface of the diner table.

"Em, you okay?" came Ruby's voice next to her. Regina's head darted toward the two women at the sound of Emma's name. Emma gazed longingly at the brunette causing Regina's eyes to dilate before huffing and storming from the diner with her coffee. Ruby's eyes shifted between Emma and the disappearing figure of the mayor.

"Did something happen between you two?" inquired Ruby, a small smirk pulling up the corner of her mouth.

"W-what? No…" replied Emma rebuilding her composure and sipping her coffee. Ruby rolled her eyes and sat across the table from the blonde.

"Emma, Regina and I have known each other for our whole lives, I know that that look wasn't just nothing, now spill."

"Well," sighed the blonde, "Mary Margaret and I talked last night… about… Regina. She told me everything about Regina's past ever since we met on the beach."

"Everything?" asked the brunette, her eyebrows raised. Emma nodded before burying her face in her coffee mug.

Ruby glanced around for prying ears before leaning in close to Emma and whispering, "She told you about Daniel?"

"Uh, yeah… kind of, I mean…" began the blonde, but her response was cut off by a loud gasp coming from Ruby. Apparently her capacity for hearing anything stopped after, "yeah."

"He was the love of her life, I can't believe Mary Margaret told you about Daniel's death, Regina's going to kill her!" exclaimed the brunette in disbelief.

"Wait, what?" sputtered Emma choking on her coffee, "Daniel's death? Daniel's… dead?"

"Oh shit," exclaimed the brunette, "I can't believe I just told you about Daniel's death, Regina's going to kill me…" Ruby scolded herself.

"Whoa, whoa… okay… enough death, enough with the killing people talk… geez," said the blonde running a hand through her hair, "the more I talk to people in this town, the more I'm convinced I'm in some kind of Stephen King novel."

The two sat in silence, Ruby quietly chastising herself while Emma deliberated as to what to do. A part of her really wanted to press Ruby for information about Daniel and how he was the 'love of Regina's life' and his death, but she already felt guilty about what little she had discovered about Regina's past. With another large sigh, Emma stands from the table placing an extra large tip in front of Ruby and exits the diner.

…..

A few minutes later, Emma sat behind a large stack of police reports at the Sheriff's station hardly paying any attention to them.

"Morning, Emma!" came a chipper voice from the door. The blonde looked up to see the smiling face of Henry entering the station. She was suddenly reminded that this was the person she had given birth to, and here he was walking towards her with a big smile on his face. The pressure of all of this new information crashing into her in such a small amount of time started to build in her gut. She sits up from her desk and forces a smile.

"Hey, kid- how've you been?" she says a little nervously, not quite certain how to act towards the little boy.

"Things have been okay, my mom's been acting weird lately, though."

"How so?"

"I don't know how to describe it, but something's different though. Did you say something to her?"

Emma sat back for a minute, thinking of what Henry could possibly mean by that.

"Hey kid, shouldn't you be in school or something?" she inquired, attempting to change the topic. Henry pouted slightly, recognizing what Emma was doing, but decided not to push anything.

"Yeah, I'm on my way now… I figured you'd walk me to the bus stop," he said with a bright, hopeful smile.

"Aight, let's get going so you're not late- your mom would hate me even more," said Emma standing up and grabbing her jacket.

They walked together in silence. Emma's mind was reeling trying to grapple the idea that she was walking her kid to the bus stop when she felt a small hand wrap itself around hers. Her heart skipped a beat as she looked down at Henry's hand, which had so easily and nonchalantly found its way to hers she couldn't help but feel both petrified and exhilarated by the gesture.

"My mom doesn't hate you, you know," said Henry firmly.

"Yeah, you've said that before- but all evidence points to the contrary."

"She doesn't," repeated Henry.

"How do you know?" asks Emma as they reach the bus.

Henry steps onto the bus and turns around, "The same way I knew how to find you," he says with a smirk.

"And how was that exactly?" inquired Emma suddenly flooded with curiosity.

Henry simply smirked and waved as the doors closed and the bus drove off.

…

Emma sat at her desk twiddling her thumbs, the stack of police reports now filed away in neat little folders in the filing cabinet. She had only heard from Graham once that day, he was running around taking care of a few small emergencies that didn't require her attention and suggested that she take an early lunch.

The events of the morning quenched her appetite, so she decided to stroll around the city. She didn't know where she would go, but something inside her told her that she knew precisely where her feet would take her.

Not long after leaving the station, Emma found herself standing outside the doors of the Mayor's office. Her hand hovered over the door in hesitation, still unsure of what she was going to say, why she was there, or what was even going to happen. After a few moments, she swallowed the knot in her throat and rapped her knuckles on the wooden door.

When there was no response, Emma blew out a sigh of relief. She turned and began to leave when around the corner came the Mayor.

"Oh shit," whispered Emma as she came face-to-face with the brunette.

"How eloquent of you, Deputy Swan. I see you're setting a shining example for Storybrooke's youth," said Regina firmly as her lip curled with disdain, "Though, of course, what exactly I was expecting- one can only imagine," hummed the brunette as she slid by the blonde slightly grazing her shoulder.

"Hey, it wouldn't hurt to be a little nice, you know. Even just a little civil," jabbed Emma. Regina swirled around piercing the blonde with her dark eyes.

"Any degree of civility I have left in my body would be best displaced with a recipient more qualified and deserving of said civility. You, however, are entitled to neither my civility nor affection- so I suggest you leave my office and stay out of my sight," returned Regina coldly once more turning around and walking into her office and shutting the door. Before she could set her purse down on her desk, the office door flung open and then slammed abruptly. She turned around to see the fuming blonde standing before her.

"Let's just cut the crap, okay Regina?" the brunette raised an eyebrow.

"I have no idea what you're ta-"

"No, you don't get to speak. I don't want any more of your generic insults or robotic retorts because that's not you. I know you, Regina."

"You think you know me?" scoffed Regina.

"Yeah, I do," replied the blonde.

"Oh Ms. Swan don't you dare even think you can begin to comprehend who I am," hissed Regina stepping close into Emma's personal space, "You think you know me just because we spent one, single day on the beach together when we were children? I knew you were dense, but I didn't exactly know just how thick the years have made you until now. That little girl you knew is gone, long gone- and she's never, never coming back."

"She's still inside you, Regina," breathed Emma as she stepped closer so that she was only a few inches from the brunette, "Deep down you are still that lost and frightened little girl I met all those years ago, if you believe that girl is gone- then your mother will win, you have to fight that, Regina."

At the mention of her mother, the brunette's eyes darkened. Her skin began to prickle as she fought to maintain control of her limbs.

"Don't you… dare, talk about my mother," hissed Regina, "You know nothing about what I've been through," the brunette began to turn away, but Emma reached out and grabbed both her shoulders pulling her close.

"I know that you tried to look for me, I know you ran away, and I know that your mother hurt you because of me- it's all my fault and you have to let me try to fix this, Regina. I really, truly care about you- and I want to see you happy and free again."

"Don't lie to me, Ms. Swan- you don't care about me," replied Regina coldly shaking Emma's hands from her shoulders and stepping away.

"And don't you tell me how to feel, Regina! The fact is that I love you, and I can't help but love you!"

All of the pressure that had been building up in both women burst in an instant. Emma's face turned red with frustration while years of bottled emotions bubbled to the surface of Regina causing her cheeks to flush with rage, her eyes brimmed with tears.

"You don't love me. You didn't even write to me! You didn't even bother looking for me! You saw what my mother was like and you just left me alone! You left me alone with her, and you didn't even bother trying to find me! You left me, Emma!" screamed the brunette before her knees gave out and she slid to the ground where decades of unreleased tears poured from her eyes.

Emma immediately dropped to the floor and wrapped her arms around the shivering brunette. She stroked the soft, dark hair and squeezed the sobbing woman next to her.

"I did look for you, Regina. I waited outside of that hotel every day and then ran away to try and find you. I'm so, so sorry I couldn't find you," whispered the blonde in Regina's ear, "You have no idea how sorry…" she trailed off as she squeezed the brunette tightly against her, placing a soft kiss on her temple.

"You looked for me?" said Regina turning her face so she could see the blonde. Emma looked down into those swirling dark eyes full of immeasurable loss and rekindled hope.

"I did," replied the blonde sweetly as she gently swept a loose strand of hair from Regina's forehead.

Without thought or warning, Regina allowed her body to melt to Emma's. Her lips pressed tenderly against the blonde's with sincere invitation. Emma smiled as a tear escaped her eye before pressing more firmly into Regina's lips. It was soft and delicate; the inevitable manifestation of a sweet longing firmly engrained for as long as they both could remember and coated with an endearing innocence long forgotten.

Both women hummed with delight as their fingers moved with delicate hesitation. Slowly examining each other with the lightest of feathery touches, both afraid of pushing too quickly as to break the fragility of the moment. Compared to their previous kiss, which had been forceful and passionate, this time echoed the joyous melancholy of the past; a kind of transcendent, yet transitory, mist of innocence and juvenile anticipation wracked with tingling nerves.

Emma relished the moment, delighting in the sensation of the woman who had bewitched her dreams for so many years. She smiled softly before she noticed the brunette's lips start to move in languid folds before stopping completely. She opened her eyes to see Regina looking at her questioningly.

"What's wrong?" inquired the blonde.

"How did you know I looked for you?" asked Regina, a small flick of suspicion appearing in her dark eyes.

Emma sat in silence, she hadn't thought of the potentially fatal consequences of revealing some of what she had learned from Mary Margaret- thus, also forgetting to come up with some sort of explanation that wouldn't require lying to the woman currently wrapped in her arms.

Regina sifted Emma's features with her eyes, slowly gleaning information from the blonde's silence. All at once, the brunette's features hardened. Placing her hands on Emma's shoulders, she pushed the blonde away, stood up, and regained her mayoral composure.

"I should have known someone like you would fall privy to idle gossip," she said snidely as she pressed the creases from her skirt with her hands and walked behind her desk to fix her make-up, leaving Emma alone on the floor. "So," sighed the Mayor, "Who was it? Graham? Ruby? The drunk around the corner?"

Emma remained silent, her lips and limbs still tingling from the fleeting moment of peaceful exhilaration that was ripped so quickly and so forcefully from her.

"And suddenly the woman who can't seem to ever keep her mouth closed is rendered speechless," said Regina as she sat firmly down behind her desk shuffling paperwork, preparing to block out the days events and lose herself in work.

Emma shakily left her seated position on the floor, propping herself up against the wall, she cast a mournful glance at the Mayor behind the desk.

"Everything I said remains true, Regina," she whispered- but the Mayor paid her no mind, the brunette sat with her eyes fixed on the papers in front of her.

"That's nice, dear, I'm sure you can find your way out," replied the brunette mechanically, her eyes still concentrated on the paperwork.

And with that, the blonde slowly nodded and shakily showed herself out of the Mayor's office, tears forming in her eyes with each step.

As the door clicked shut, Regina stared at her paperwork, willing the words to become legible- but all went blurry as her eyes brimmed with tears.