First, I'd like to make note of the fact that this is a slow burn Swan Queen story. In this story, Regina marries Daniel, Emma hooks up with Neal, Hook is all but a brief mention as a horrible coworker for just a very brief moment in time. This story focuses on them, on Swan Queen in an Alternate Universe, and it is about their story in the end. There's not much more I can say without giving the story away, so I hope any and all who read this will enjoy it and stick through it until the end :)

This was written for the Swan Queen Big Bang IV: Four Letter Words, originally posted on AO3 on February 12th

Part I

At fifteen, Emma Swan thought she ruled the world, breaking the rules and setting her own, living as free as she could manage while pissing off every authority figure in her life. From her parents, to teachers, to the principal who had it out for her from day one, to the cops she had run-ins with on a regular basis, and now Neal Cassidy, a correctional officer at the Tallahassee Youth Detention Center.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Emma asked, defiantly crossing her arms over her chest as she stared at the man. "I didn't do it."

"I have seven witnesses, Swan. Seven."

"So what?" Emma scoffed. "Doesn't mean I did it."

Neal Cassidy sighed and ran his fingers through his short hair. "Swan, I know you did it. I even saw you with my own two eyes, and before you come up with a sarcastic, bullshit answer, I want you to own up to what you did."

Emma smirked and raised an eyebrow at the CO. It wasn't her first stint in a juvenile detention center, and she knew it wasn't going to be her last. She had seen it all in there, from fights to someone almost dying after being shanked by a toothbrush. The latest incident wasn't her fault, not exactly. She wasn't the one who started throwing the disgusting mashed potatoes around the cafeteria, but she had the misfortune of hitting the CO dead in the face with a handful of undercooked peas.

"You know you're getting written up for what you did."

"What about everyone else?" Emma asked. "I wasn't the one who started it!"

"I have statements that say otherwise."

"Bullshit," Emma snapped and she uncrossed her arms and gripped at the arm of the chair she was sitting in. "You want to know who started it? That bitch Lily Page. If anyone should be in trouble for what went down, it should be her."

"Swan, you know this is your third strike and you're supposed to be out of here at the end of the month. You take this strike and you're in solitary until you are released."

"Shit," Emma muttered under her breath. Solitary was the worst and the last thing she wanted was to be in the hole. "What do you want me to do? Apologize?"

"That would be a good start," Cassidy smiled at her. "We've started a new program here, a pen pal program. You write a letter to—"

"How lame."

"You write a letter to someone in another state, someone your own age but from a different walk of life," he continued. "I think you'd benefit from this."

"By writing a letter to a stranger?"

"Wouldn't hurt to give it a shot," he smiled at her before he reached for a binder on the shelf behind his desk. "What do you say, Swan?"

"Who else is doing this?"

"A couple of others that are no longer here and I don't expect to see them back," he said and he opened the binder before sliding it towards her. "Pick one."

Emma rolled her eyes and slid forward on the hard chair, scanning over the list of names printed out. Several of them had a line crossed through and there were some near the bottom of the page that had been written in instead of typed up. One name in particular seemed to stand out and it was one near the top, in between all the other names that had already been crossed out.

"Regina Mills," Emma said. "Storybrooke, Maine. Shit, are you for real? There is a place called Storybrooke?"

"Seems so," Cassidy replied and he reached for a pen in the holder. "She's been on the list since we started. I'm sure she'll be wondering why she hasn't gotten a letter since she joined the program."

"Right."

She watched him copy down the address and the girl's name on a post-it before he placed it on top of an empty envelope and made sure there was a stamp on it. He grabbed a couple of pieces of paper and another pen before handing it over to her.

"I have to write it now?" Emma asked and he nodded his head. "What do I even write? Wouldn't it be easier to, I dunno, use e-mail or something?"

"That's not the point of the program and this is the old-fashioned way, Swan. I'll give you as long as you need to write the letter and personally mail it for you myself at the end of my shift," he said and he leaned back in his chair. "Introduce yourself to start it off. Maybe even talk about what you did to land in here again."

"How long does it have to be?"

"However long you'd like for it to be, but keep it appropriate."

"I do this and you won't write me up?" Emma asked and all she got was a gruff nod of his head before his phone rang and he answered promptly. "Whatever. It's just a stupid letter to a stranger."

Dear Regina Mills,

My name is Emma Swan. I'm fifteen, turning sixteen at the end of October, and I live in Tallahassee, Florida. It's boring here, never anything interesting to do except go to the beach on the weekends sometimes, though it's not close by. I'm stuck in juvie for another month. Not my first time at the rodeo, probably not the last either. Funny story about how I got in here again and it all started three weeks ago when my friend Lily thought it'd be funny to spray paint a penis on the principal's car…

[X]

Regina Mills breezed in through the front door of 108 Mifflin Street at exactly three in the afternoon. She placed her book bag near the steps before walking through the foyer and into the kitchen. Like every afternoon when she arrived home from school, her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen with a cup of hot apple cider, and the dozens of college and university pamphlets laid out on the island countertop.

"Hello Mother," Regina smiled before she took a seat on the stool in her usual spot.

"Did you have a good day, dear?"

"Yes, I did, Mother," she replied and she reached for the mug of hot apple cider.

Since she turned sixteen in February, her mother had begun to pressure her with college applications, turning every afternoon into her trying to make the right choice for her future and in some cases, practicing writing an essay that would be sent along with her admission form. Cora Mills was dead set on her becoming a doctor, but Regina's passion was in teaching and she had always dreamt of being a teacher one day. Cora Mills had disapproved of her dream, her passion, time and time again, but it never stopped her from dreaming of her future as a teacher.

Her mother was pushing for her to go to Yale, her alma matter, and while Regina knew she could get the best education at that university, she really wanted to go to school in Florida or even California to get as far away from Storybrooke as she could manage. Money was no object as her parents had promised her she could go to any college she wanted to, but Regina already had her hopes riding on a full-ride scholarship so she wouldn't be financially tied to her parents once she graduated from high school in two years.

"You got a letter today," Cora said and she picked up a single white envelope from the mail pile near her and handed it to Regina with a light scoff. "It's from that program for juvenile delinquents that you signed up for last year."

"Oh?" Regina looked at her mother curiously. "I don't remember signing up for a program like that."

"Ah, that was the one I signed you up for," Cora said and she shook her head. "Regardless, this will look good on your applications. It'll broaden your interests and it can be considered as volunteer work seeing as you'll be exchanging letters with a convict who just so happens to be your age."

Regina looked at the sloppy writing on the front of the envelope before she flipped it over and opened it carefully. When Cora cleared her throat, she placed the envelope down just off to the side and picked up the package from Yale.

"You may read it after we've gone over the guidelines," Cora said tightly. "Now, tell me what the basic requirements are in order to apply, starting with the minimum grade point average."

An hour after going over the Yale package, which she had been practically forced to memorize in recent weeks, Regina was in her room with the letter sitting on her bed in front of her. She pulled open the single piece of paper and struggled to read through the horrible handwriting. A few lines in, her face went red at the girl's colorful language and she was glad she hadn't been permitted to read it in front of her mother because she would've had to explain her embarrassment over reading the word "penis".

It was a short letter, barely half a page, but she'd be lying if she claimed not to be intrigued by Emma Swan. She picked up the letter and walked over to her desk. She pulled out a piece of her personalized stationary that smelled faintly of roses and she began to write her back, her cursive elegantly perfect due to hours upon hours of practice when she was younger.

Dear Emma,

I am sixteen as well and as you know, I live in a town called Storybrooke in Maine. It is a small town, smaller than Tallahassee, but there is plenty to do here, things I'm sure you would find boring as they are not particularly exciting in any way…

Her letter was twice as long as the one she'd received and writing, whether it was for school or for pleasure, was another passion of hers and one she enjoyed immensely. She wrote about her life in Storybrooke, keeping the details to a minimum as this girl was a perfect stranger. She finished it off with a few questions before signing her name at the bottom.

Her plan was to mail the letter on the way to school the next morning, but for three weeks, the letter sat on her desk, almost forgotten about until one Saturday morning when she stumbled across it and made a quick trip to the post office to mail the letter off. Whether she received a reply or not, she'd done her part.

"Regina?"

She turned just as she was about to exit the small post office at the familiar voice of a boy in her English class. Daniel. With a smile she walked over to where he stood at the counter, filling out a form to send a package out of state.

"Hello Daniel."

"Didn't expect to see you here today," he said with a sweet smile. "I don't see you outside of school that much anymore since you stopped riding."

"Rocinante had to be put down," she said quietly, the pain of losing her best friend in the entire world still very fresh and deep. "The vet found a tumor in his brain during his annual check-up."

"I'm sorry," Daniel frowned. "I had wondered since I hadn't seen him at the stables. I thought maybe your father had him sent over to the Jefferson farm."

Regina smiled politely and watched him as he fidgeted nervously. She didn't even know his last name and only knew him from school and from her time spent riding her horse on the Andrews' farm. He was from a poor family, his background completely the opposite of her own, but unlike her mother, things like that didn't bother her at all.

"I'm sorry to be so forward, but I've been trying to find a way to ask you out on a date," Daniel said in a rush and before she could reply, he continued, his face growing red. "It's just that you are very beautiful, Regina, and I'd love to get to know you better. Even if this date doesn't work out, I'd like to be friends."

"I'd love to," Regina smiled and she placed a hand on his arm. "I'd love to go out on a date with you, Daniel, but before I can do that, there is something I need to know."

"What's that?"

"Your last name," Regina replied quietly. "I don't know what it is."

"Daniel Von Gonnadie."

"Be serious," Regina laughed.

"Daniel Farmer," he said quietly. "Yeah, you can start with the jokes just like everyone else—"

"I think I like Von Gonnadie better," Regina smirked and he seemed to relax, the color in his red cheeks fading as he too started to laugh. "So, Daniel Farmer, where are you taking me on this date?"

"It'll be a surprise."

Regina hated surprises, but she smiled anyway. Her life was so structured and dominated by her mother that she had never had the chance to go out on a proper date with a boy. Daniel would be the first and she couldn't help but wonder just how their first date would go. Would he kiss her at the end of the night or would he be nothing but a perfect gentleman? Already she could feel the butterflies starting to take flight in her stomach and by the time she left the post office, she had forgotten all about the letter she'd sent to Emma, and her mind was focused solely on Daniel.

[X]

It was a sunny day in September, a Thursday, when Emma was released to her parents after doing her time once again. Her mother would barely look at her, barely said two words to her as they walked to the car, but her father had started to talk about taking a trip that weekend to go fishing.

"David, I don't think now is the time to think about taking Emma on a fishing trip."

"Mary Margaret, we've already talked about this. Emma has been away for almost two months. It'll be good for her to have this weekend before she goes back to school next week."

Emma sat squished between them in her father's old brown Ford pick-up, a vehicle that he'd had since before she was even born and refused to get rid of. Her backpack was in the bed of the truck, strapped down with old yellow rope and sitting alongside to her father's toolbox. It was a long drive home and if her parents were already bickering, she knew it would feel a hundred times longer than it actually was.

"Did you stay out of trouble?" Her mother asked quietly and Emma nodded, fiddling with the knobs on the radio to try and find a station to her liking. "Emma?"

"What Mom?" Emma sighed. "I stayed out of trouble this time, all right!"

"I don't want you going back," she said quietly. "This is the last time, do you understand me?"

"Whatever," Emma muttered. "Dad, can we stop and get a burger? The food there sucked and I feel like I'm starving to death."

"Of course we—"

"No," Mary Margaret said firmly and the tone of her voice made even David jump a little bit. "We are going home and we are going to have a nice family dinner. A nice home-cooked meal that we are going to eat at the table, not in front of the TV."

Emma slouched in the seat as far as she could and the hot Florida sun made the cab feel ten times hotter even though both windows were open. She closed her eyes and groaned quietly, knowing that once she was home, her mother would list off the rules she would have to follow, rules she would follow for at least a week before doing everything she could to break them.

Nobody spoke during the last of the forty minute drive to the house and as soon as Emma was out of the truck, she grabbed her bag and headed around to the back door, letting herself in with her own key and made a dash straight upstairs to her bedroom.

Like the last time she'd come home, her room wasn't how she'd left it. Her mother had taken it upon herself once again to clean every square inch of the tiny room; her things neatly put away, her bed made with freshly washed sheets, and not a single piece of clothing on the floor. Emma hated it when it was that clean, but she hated it even more that her mother had touched her things and moved them.

She stripped out of the clothes she had on and after rifling through her dresser drawers, she found her favorite pair of board shorts and pulled them on. She found a white tank top neatly folded in her top drawer and pulled it on.

"Emma?" Her father said as he knocked on her closed bedroom door. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

Emma picked up her bag and dumped it on her bed as her father entered the room. He chuckled as he leaned up against her desk and crossed his arms over his chest. "I see that you're getting settled right away."

"Why does Mom have to clean my room?" Emma asked, tossing her clothes to the floor by the hamper that she had been allowed to wear on Thursdays at the detention center if she had a clean week with no strikes or warnings written up. "She knows how much I hate it when she touches my stuff."

"You know your mother lives for a clean, organized home. Most of the time," he smiled at her and shook his head as she tossed her bag on the floor and kicked it under the twin sized bed. "So, how about that fishing trip this weekend, Em?"

"But Mom said—"

"I'll talk to her about it."

Emma nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Dad?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"I—" She stopped short and frowned deeply. "Never mind."

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing, I just—I missed being home, that's all. I really hate that place."

"Well, I guess you could try and not end up back there again," he said quietly. "What can we do to help you to make sure you don't go back?"

"I dunno, Dad."

"Your mother wants to send you to therapy—"

"What? Hell no!"

"Emma, can you at least give it a shot? We keep trying to understand why you keep getting into trouble. We're concerned that this is only going to escalate and get worse."

"I'm not going to end up killing someone," she said before muttering under her breath, "If that's what you're worried about."

David sighed and pulled an envelope out of his back pocket. "This came for you this morning. I didn't know you knew anyone in Maine."

"Oh," Emma said as she stood up from the bed and took the letter from him. "This new CO put me in this pen pal program, hooked me up with some girl in Maine."

"That's nice."

"It's lame."

"Maybe not as lame as you think it is," he chuckled. "Put it this way, if you two keep exchanging letters, you could end up becoming friends despite how far away she lives. And who knows, maybe this girl has a good head on her shoulders and will end up rubbing off on you in a good way."

"That's a stretch."

"What part?"

"All of it. I wrote to her like a month ago. You said it came this morning?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Dinner will be ready in an hour. Can you promise me that you'll try to be civil with your mother tonight? She's been having a rough time with her students and with you going back to the detention center—"

"I'll be civil," Emma sighed. "What's for dinner?"

"Convinced her to make hamburgers," he smiled. "Are you going to open that?"

"Yeah," Emma said as she looked down at the letter in her hand.

Once her father had left the room, she sat back down on her bed and tore the envelope open, surprised to find the letter a full page long, the cursive elegant and neat. Laying back on her bed, she began to read the letter, at first a little uninterested, but then she started to laugh when she read what Regina had to say about her vandalizing the principal's car with a giant penis.

If there was one thing that CO Neal Cassidy had been right about, Regina Mills was from a very different kind of life compared to her own. Before she even finished reading the letter, she was already at her desk, pulling out a piece of paper from her math notebook and she was writing her answers to the questions Regina had asked her.

By the time her mother called her down for dinner, she had written and rewritten almost a page to Regina, rewriting because her printing was a complete mess and her cursive even worse. The second one was taken with a little more care, and not even in school did she ever take her time in making sure the things she wrote was legible. She wasn't sure why she suddenly cared, it was only a letter to a perfect stranger after all, but by the time she signed her name on the bottom, her mother had called her down for a second time.

Her mind was on the things that Regina had written to her and it stayed with her throughout dinner. Her parents talked about her getting caught up in school, but for once she didn't pay attention to that conversation, she just wondered how long it'd take for Regina Mills to write back to her this time around.

[X]

Two weeks passed since Emma had sent the letter, her mother surprised to say the least when she asked for some stamps to send it off. She even let her mother read Regina's letter and proof read the one she was sending back to her. Emma was certainly surprised that her mother supported the pen pal program she'd gotten herself involved in just to keep from landing in solitary, but that was a little bit of information she had kept to herself.

It was a rather hot Wednesday afternoon in mid-October when Emma came home from school to a letter from Regina Mills, this time it hadn't taken almost a month for her to reply. Emma tucked the envelope in her back pocket and grabbed a cold can of Coke from the fridge before she left her bag by the side door and headed up to her room.

She turned on her CD player, Freak On A Leash blasting on repeat as she laid back on her bed and tore open the letter. A single paper flower fell out with the two pieces of stationary that had been meticulously folded. With a smirk, she picked up the paper flower, a tulip, folded from a delicate piece of yellow paper.

Dear Emma,

I must say that I was surprised to find your letter. I thought you wouldn't have written back to me after it had taken me so long to mail it to you. Life got in the way, of course. Your birthday is coming up, isn't it? I wasn't sure what to get you, sixteen is a big milestone, so I thought maybe you'd like the tulip I made for you. It's ridiculous, I know, but when in doubt, something made instead of something bought ends up meaning a lot more.

Emma picked up the paper flower and fiddled with it until it was no longer flat. It was neat, she had to admit that, and she'd never been able to fold something that looking like anything—aside from paper airplanes she made in class of course. She twirled it once more before continuing to read.

I think I have a boyfriend now and his name is Daniel. He is very kind, and he makes me laugh in ways that no one else ever has. Mother doesn't approve of course, she thinks my time would be better spent preparing for my future. Do you have a boyfriend?

What are you doing for your birthday? Are your parents throwing you a big party? Mine did and it was ridiculous, but I loved every minute of it. My father gifted me my first car, although I cannot drive it on my own until I pass my driving test. I'll let you in on a little secret, I've failed it three times already and it is the first time I've ever failed at anything. Daniel is teaching me how to drive out in the countryside. He's already given me three lessons and well, every time I do well at what he teaches me, he kisses me.

One day, I would love to take a road trip and forget about the rest of the world. Do you ever dream of doing such things? I don't know where I'd go, maybe I'll drive down to Florida and surprise you one day. Wouldn't that be something, Emma, to have a perfect stranger showing up at your door out of nowhere, completely unannounced and unexpected? I do have your address, after all.

Emma chuckled quietly and shook her head. The way Regina wrote, she knew she was prim and proper, innocent compared to the life that Emma lived. The way she spoke about her boyfriend made it seem like she'd never had one before. Emma wondered how she'd react when she wrote back and told her that she'd not only had a boyfriend before, but a girlfriend as well.

She moved from her bed to her desk, ripping out paper from her math notebook she barely used anyway, already beginning to write back to the girl in Maine before she finished reading the rest of the letter. She had finished it by the time her mother came home and called her down to help with the groceries, but this time she didn't let her mother proof read as there were some things she'd written she'd much rather not have her mother know.

Especially those things about Lily Page and the six months they'd spent being a little more than just friends.

"Did you have a good day today, Emma?" Mary Margaret asked when she walked into the kitchen. "Did you stay out of trouble?"

"Yeah I did, Mom," Emma smiled at her. "I'm almost caught up in some of my classes. The guidance counselor suggested I get a tutor to get caught up in algebra."

"I know someone who could help you out," Mary Margaret replied with a smile. "If you want, I can give him a call later?"

"Maybe," she shrugged and she started to unpack the groceries from the paper bags sitting on the kitchen counter. "Hey, my birthday is coming up," she said after a few moments and it caused her mother to stop midway from putting the jug of milk into the fridge. "It's a big one, isn't it? Sixteen."

"Yes, yes it is," Mary Margaret replied quietly. "I was thinking we could all go out for dinner, somewhere nice and a little fancy. Grandma Ruth will be coming up from Miami that weekend."

"Can I have a party, Mom?"

"A party, Emma?"

"Yeah, with my friends," she said carefully, already knowing that her mother would say no because of what had happened the last time she threw a party at the house.

"I don't think that is a good idea, Emma."

"Right. Whatever."

"You can invite a friend or two to come to dinner with us if you'd like," she continued and Emma just shrugged, feeling the anger bubbling and boiling inside of her as tears pricked at her eyes. "Oh Emma, I know this is a big birthday, but you've had a rough year and after the last party you threw, I'm afraid we cannot trust you not to destroy the house again. We could barely afford the repairs we needed to do."

Emma clenched her fists and her jaw tightly before swallowing past the lump of disappointment that was lodged in her throat. "Right," she muttered quietly, grabbed the jar of peanut butter, and shoved it in the right cabinet. "No party. Got it."

"I don't mean to upset you, sweetie," Mary Margaret said as she walked over to her and wrapped her arms around her. "You have to understand where I'm coming from. These friends of yours, they have no respect for anyone else, and I don't want to see the house completely trashed as it was the last time."

"I get it. No party," Emma said as she gave her a small push to dislodge her mother's arms from around her. "What's for dinner tonight, Mom?"

"I was thinking since it's so warm out, we could make some chicken and broccoli pasta salad. Maybe you can give me a hand?"

"Nah, I—I got some homework to do. Dad was going to take me out tonight for a driving lesson, so I kind of wanted to get it done before that."

"Okay, sweetie," she smiled lightly. "I'll call you down when it's ready. Don't forget to bring down those empty glasses and bowls I've been asking you to do for the last couple of days, okay?"

"Sure," Emma sighed and she turned on her heels, racing back up the stairs into her bedroom. She had to fight the urge to slam the door as the tears she'd kept at bay in front of her mother began to fall.

She sat at her desk and flipped the paper over. She had to calm herself down a little as she grabbed her pen, her hand shaking before she began to write the last of the letter to Regina Mills.

My parents won't let me have a party, some sweet sixteen it'll be, huh? I had a party at the end of the school year, one that they didn't know about until they came home to the house being trashed. It wasn't my fault some seniors decided to show up with booze and things quickly got out of hand.

Anyway, thanks for the paper flower. Nobody has ever made me anything before and it's nice. Maybe one day I'll learn how to fold something other than paper airplanes and send you something too.

I leave you with one last question. Is Daniel your first boyfriend? Have you ever kissed anyone before him? I bet you're still a virgin, aren't you? Not that it is a bad thing, you know? Hope to hear from you soon.

Emma Swan

[X]

A dozen letters had been exchanged between the two before Christmas rolled around, and Regina found herself looking forward to that letter that came every second week from the girl in Tallahassee, Florida. Each letter grew progressively longer, questions were asked and answered, and in some cases, secrets were exchanged and because of the nature of some of the letters, Regina had to lock them away in a little lock box that she hid deep in her closet where her mother would never, ever find them.

In the time since she started exchanging letters with Emma Swan, Regina had found herself in her first serious relationship with Daniel Farmer. They went out on dates several times a week and he continued to give her driving lessons to prepare her for her test she'd be taking in the New Year. They hadn't gone much further than kissing, aside from the one time they went to the Toll Bridge after having dinner at Lumiere's and they ended up making out, their hands exploring at little more than they had ever dared to before.

She had told Emma some of the littlest of details, finding it hard to write them without blushing profusely. Emma, as crass as she could be at times throughout her letters, told her it was only natural to want to be touched, to be loved in a way she had never known before. Emma had, in her last letter, described in very intricate detail about her encounter with another girl, how different it had been from being with a boy, how much softer their lips were, how gentler their fingers were, how different yet the same their bodies were to her own.

Regina had read over that part a handful of times, finding herself growing aroused when Emma described her sexual encounters with her friend Lily. It had been a week at that point and she had yet to write a letter in return, but what would she say after reading something that was so erotic, something that had made her flush in arousal with every word she'd read?

For the first time in the few months they'd been exchanging letters, Regina was growing curious as to what this Emma Swan looked like. She seemed to have gotten to know everything else about her aside from knowing what she looked like. She had been debating sending a picture of herself along with her next letter and was going over the many pictures she had on the wall above her desk, pictures of her, her friends, her and Daniel. It was how her best friend Kathryn Nolan had found her that afternoon.

"Regina, what are you doing?"

"Nothing," Regina sighed, putting the tack back into the picture of herself and Kathryn back on the wall. "I thought we weren't meeting until later?"

"It is later," Kathryn chuckled. "Fred is waiting downstairs. He managed to borrow his father's car and since Daniel's truck is out of commission right now, we're going to go around and pick him up before we head out to the cabin for that party."

"I don't know if that's a good idea, Kathryn."

"Why not? It is the first day of winter break. We should go out and have fun. There's not going to be a lot of us there," Kathryn said and she draped an arm casually around Regina's tense shoulders. "What is going on with you, Regina?"

"Nothing," Regina replied a little too quickly. "Maybe I just don't want to go to the cabin tonight. My mother, she won't approve of it, especially since—"

"I have already told her that you are spending the night at my place," Kathryn smirked and she turned Regina until she looked at her. "You and Daniel have been together for a few months now. Don't you think it's time for you two to take the next step, Regina?"

"The next step?"

"Sex," Kathryn said in a hushed whisper. Regina flushed and shook her head as she looked away from her friend. "You're going to be seventeen soon. You don't want to be a virgin forever, do you?"

"No, but—"

"Daniel loves you, Regina."

"He—he hasn't said that yet," she stammered and felt her face flush. "Do you think he loves me, Kathryn?"

"Yes," she smiled. "Very much so. Don't you love him, Regina?"

"I do."

Kathryn smiled at her widely and took her hand in her own. "Come on, let's find you something to wear and then we'll head out, okay?"

"Kathryn, wait," Regina sighed and she turned her attention to the letter and envelope on her desk. "You know that girl I've been writing to?"

"The one in Florida?"

"Yes," she nodded. "I—I wonder if it's okay to send her a picture?"

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"I'm curious," Regina replied. "Curious as to what she looks like. Who is to say she isn't wondering the same thing?"

Kathryn shook her head before looking at the wall of pictures. She shook her head again and grabbed the Polaroid camera that sat on her bookshelf. "Let's take one then," she said quietly. "One just for this friend of yours."

"I don't know, Kathryn. Maybe it's not such a good idea," she said uneasily. "It's just supposed to be a pen pal program, after all. According to my mother, it'll look good on my college applications for reaching out to a troubled teenager my own age."

"Is that why you keep writing her back?" Kathryn questioned. "Because it is going to look good on your applications? Or are you writing her back because you two are becoming friends?"

Regina wasn't sure how to answer that as she wasn't sure what the answer was. She did know that she enjoyed reading Emma's letters and that she enjoyed writing her back because she never knew what Emma would end up saying in the next one.

"Regardless," Kathryn continued as she lifted the Polaroid camera up and snapped a picture, chuckling as she pulled the picture free and tossed it on the desk before quickly snapping another of Regina candidly. "I am growing curious as to what this girl looks like because from the things you've told me, I'm imagining this hard looking, tattoo covered girl from the wrong side of the tracks."

"She's only sixteen," Regina replied and she grabbed the camera before Kathryn could take a third picture. "And at least let me do my hair and smile for the camera, Kat. I am not sending some embarrassing picture to her."

Amongst the teasing she received from Kathryn while she fixed her hair, in the end and four pictures later, she had one she found was good enough to send with her letter to Emma. Kathryn was the one who sealed the envelope, not allowing her to change her mind at the last minute, and she ushered Regina out of the house after they said a quick goodbye to her parents.

After a quick stop at the post office before driving out to pick up Daniel, Regina found herself growing more and more nervous about spending the night at the cabin, alone, with her friends and with Daniel. She hated lying to her mother, but it hadn't exactly been her lie, just one she went along with and hoped that her mother wouldn't find out at all. She was also nervous about the picture she'd sent along with the letter, but it was nerves she could quickly push aside and worry about in two week's time when Emma's next letter would likely arrive.

It was that night she lost her virginity to her boyfriend, the entire encounter strange and awkward. Daniel had told her he loved her in the moments before they had stripped out of their clothes and crawled into the small, hard, double-sized bed in the second bedroom inside the small cabin while their friends drank and danced just twenty feet beyond the locked door.

It felt so very cliché, losing her virginity during a party, but it was one of the experiences as a teenager she had feared she'd never get the opportunity to experience for herself. She wasn't sure what it was when she'd finally returned home the next morning and escaped to her room without having to face her mother, but the first thing she did was sit down at her desk and began to write another letter to Emma, one describing all that had happened the night before and left her blushing at some of the words she had written.

In the end, she locked the letter up in her little lock box, not quite ready to send it to Emma or to even reread it for herself. She spent the rest of her winter break as she normally did, with her family, celebrating Christmas, and she spent time with Daniel whenever she could, but they were never alone, not until New Year's Eve when she invited him over after her parents had left for the night to attend a party in Portland.

She rang in the New Year with her boyfriend, her first love, sipping stolen champagne as they lay naked in her bed. Yet her thoughts weren't solely on Daniel, but that of Emma Swan and wondering what she was doing in that very moment, wondering how she had chosen to ring in the New Year, and wondering if Emma was thinking of her too.

[X]

The handcuffs pinched the skin around her wrists, them having been put on far too tightly in the brief struggle she'd had with the cop that tackled her to the ground. This wasn't the start to the New Year she had wanted, but she'd gone to the party with Lily and ended up drinking far too much cheap tequila. When a fight broke out inside the apartment complex, Emma had found herself deep in the middle of it all, fighting only to get out of there, not because she was a part of it all.

The cop who arrested her and put her in the back of the squad car had no reason to believe a word she said. She was sixteen years old, drunk, with a record longer than the length of her arm, and a history of fighting and underage drinking being the majority of reasons behind each of her priors.

She flinched when the other back door opened and another cop all but shoved Lily in the back with her. Lily was laughing, her nose bloody, her right eye swollen shut and her t-shirt ripped. She looked over at Emma and burst out laughing.

"God, what a shit-fest this turned into, huh?" Lily asked, slurring her words as she nearly toppled over on to Emma. "You okay, Em?"

"No."

"You were right," Lily said with a frown. "This was a bad idea. We should've left when you said earlier. I'm sorry."

"Whatever," Emma muttered.

Two hours later, Emma's father picked her up from the station after several witnesses of the fight said she hadn't been initially involved. Lily, however, was booked and spending the rest of the night in a holding cell before she'd be transported back to the juvenile detention center for an undetermined amount of time. David was quiet as he drove the truck home and Emma struggled to keep her eyes open, the alcohol and the excitement of the night catching up to her and making her feel extremely exhausted.

A block from the house, he stopped the truck at the side of the road. Emma murmured quietly about wanting to go home and go to sleep in her bed, but he shook his head and forced her to look over at him by gripping tightly on to her jaw.

"You were very lucky they didn't book you tonight, Emma."

"I know, Dad."

"What were you even doing there?" He asked and let go of her chin with a frown. "You told your mother and I you weren't going out at all tonight. Your mother nearly had a heart attack when she went up to your room just before midnight so we could ring in the New Year together as a family."

"I made a mistake."

"A big mistake," he said quietly. "You're grounded for a month."

"A month?" Emma's eyes were wide open in disbelief. "Come on, Dad, that's not fair!"

"Do you think it is fair to put your mother and I through this?" He countered and Emma shook her head and balled her hands into tight fists. "We're pulling you out of school and we're going to arrange for you to be tutored for the rest of the school year. You are not to speak or see Lily Page ever again, do you understand me, Emma?"

"Yeah, Dad, I do, but do you have to pull me out of school? I've been doing better!"

"I know you have, but these friends of yours, your mother and I believe it'd be a lot easier for you to stay away from them if you don't see them every day."

A part of her knew that her father was right. Her friends, her so-called friends, were always the ones talking her into doing the things that ultimately got her into some serious trouble. She knew the people she hung out with from time to time were bad news, especially Lily Page, but Lily had been her only real friend for as long as she could remember and she wasn't sure how she'd end that friendship, even if it were something that had grown into being a toxic one.

She thought back to some of the things that Regina had written to her in response to some of the things Emma had done with her friends. Regina had told her bluntly to stop being a sheep, stop following the people who bring her down, to break free and find her own sense of self-worth and her own place in the world. When she had read those words the first time, it seemed impossible and unrealistic, but thinking back to them, even in her inebriated state, it was starting to make a little more sense.

Emma didn't say another word as her father drove the rest of the way home. She stumbled a few times once she'd gotten out of the truck and with his help, she got up to her room and into her bed. She laid there for the longest time, her tears staining her pillow as she listened to her parents arguing in their room across the hall. She pulled out the Polaroid picture that Regina had sent to her and she flipped on the bedside lamp, studying the small picture and the beautiful girl in it.

Regina's life was drastically different from her own. She came from a rich family and while her mother was strict, she had a better life, better grades, better friends, and even her boyfriend seemed better than any of the guys Emma had briefly dated or hooked up with in the past. A part of her was jealous of this girl, someone that was no longer a perfect stranger, but still very much one all at the same time. She fell asleep that night to thoughts of Regina, wondering if she'd spent the night with her perfect gentleman of a boyfriend, wondering if she too was thinking about her at all.

It was a week after the New Year's Eve incident when Emma ran into Neal Cassidy at the corner store just a block and a half from her house. Her mother had sent her off to get some more milk, letting her out of the house for the first time since she'd been grounded. Emma wandered up and down the aisles in the store, carrying the jug of milk in her left hand while she browsed each rack, killing time as she knew she'd be stuck inside for at least a few days more.

They had quite literally run into one another, neither looking as they walked down the middle aisle in the small store. The basket he'd been carrying fell to the floor upon the impact and Emma, flustered, bent down at the same time as he did, their foreheads banging hard against one another.

"Swan?"

"Shit," Emma groaned as she held a hand to her forehead and stood up slowly. When she blinked away the slight dizziness, she shook her head with a small chuckle of disbelief.

"What are you doing here?"

Emma held up the jug of milk. "My mom sent me down to get the milk she forgot when she went shopping yesterday. What are you doing here?"

"Aside from running into you and finding out you got quite a hard head?" He asked as he rubbed a hand over his forehead with a teasing smile. "I stopped in to get some snacks. I'm headed down to meet up with some friends at the beach today."

She took a moment to let her eyes roam over the man in front of her and she laughed quietly at the colorful board shorts and bright blue t-shirt he had on, a stark contrast to the black uniform she'd seen him wear every day during her last stint at the detention center. She also noticed how much younger he looked out of his uniform and it made her wonder just how old he really was.

He's definitely too old for you, she told herself as he picked up the things that had fallen from the basket upon their impact. Cute, but too old.

"Have you been staying out of trouble?"

"Who me?" Emma smirked. "Mostly."

"Well, you haven't been back, so I take it as a good sign," he chuckled. "How are you doing in school?"

Emma didn't want to talk to him about the things that had happened in the past week, and she just shrugged and headed towards the cashier near the front of the store. It was awkward enough running into the young, cute CO, even more so just having a conversation with him that sounded like the ones they had in his office on days he counseled her at the detention center.

"Right," Neal said as he stood behind her at the counter. "How about that pen pal program I signed you up for? Did you ever hear back from that girl in Maine?"

"Yeah," Emma nodded and she fished out a few dollar bills from her pocket to pay for the jug of milk. "We've been writing back and forth."

He smiled, a smile that was more polite than anything. "I'm glad it worked out for you, Emma."

"You just called me Emma."

"That is your name, isn't it?" Neal asked and the teenage cashier behind the counter just rolled his eyes as Neal began to unload his basket.

"You've always only called me Swan," she replied.

"Well, we're not at the center, are we?" Neal countered. "And you can call me Neal when I'm not working."

"I'd rather not."

Neal chuckled and pulled out a worn leather wallet from his left pocket and pulled out a credit card. "Suit yourself, Swan. I'll see you around."

"Will you?"

"Just moved to the neighborhood a few days ago."

"Right," Emma said and she walked out of the store without saying another word. She pulled her aviators on and started to walk down the street in the direction of her house when she heard footsteps coming up from behind her quickly a few minutes later. "What, are you following me now, Cassidy?"

"Nah," he replied with a shrug. "I live down that way."

"So do I."

"Can I take you out for coffee sometime?"

Emma stopped and peered over the top of her aviators at him incredulously. "You do remember that I am only sixteen, right?"

"And I'm only twenty-one," he replied. "Not that much of an age difference and it's only coffee, Swan, not a date."

"Whatever," she replied as she started to cross the empty street. "I would say yes, but I am currently grounded right now."

"How about when you're not?"

Emma stopped to look at him and she rolled her eyes. "Are you always this persistent, Neal?"

"Only with the pretty girls, I am," he replied with a wink. "That was a joke."

"Right."

Neal shook his head and grabbed on to her wrist lightly before pulling out a pen from his pocket. He quickly wrote his number down on her palm and released her wrist with a smile. "Call me sometime, will you?"

"Why?"

"We might have five years between us, but I know when someone can use a friend."

"I have friends."

"Friends who are nothing but bad news," he countered. "You could use a friend who doesn't get their kicks breaking the law."

"And you think that you can be that friend?"

He shrugged. "Maybe," he smiled at her. "I'll see you around, Emma."

"Yeah, whatever, Neal. See you."

Emma didn't think much about Neal Cassidy, not for another week until she got a letter from Regina. It was long, almost four pages front and back. She hadn't expected a letter from her since she had still yet to reply to the last one, the one that had come with the Polaroid that Regina had sent along with it.

She locked herself in the bathroom to read the letter, shocked at how detailed it all was as Regina described her first time having sex with her stupid, perfect boyfriend. She hated that she was jealous, not of Regina, but of her boyfriend. She hated that she had those thoughts, those feelings at all. She only knew this girl through her letters, through the things they told one another and the secrets they shared from time to time. She had no right to be jealous, she knew that, but it left a bitter taste in her mouth she couldn't quite get rid of and she wasn't entirely sure why.

She could barely make it through the letter without stopping to fight back her tears. Regina, all too innocent Regina Mills, was describing her first time in vivid detail, much like how Emma had described to her about the first time she and Lily had sex. She had only reached the last page when her mother knocked on the locked door, telling her that her help was needed to prepare dinner before her father was due home from work.

Emma went back to her room and placed the letter in the old Converse shoebox she had under her bed that held all the other letters and the paper flower Regina had made and sent for her sixteenth birthday. When her mother called for her to hurry up downstairs, she placed the shoebox back in its spot and rushed down to the kitchen.

"I'm sorry," Emma said in a rush at the disapproving look she received from her mother as she skidded into the kitchen. "Uh, I have bad cramps today."

"Oh?" Mary Margaret frowned and she walked over to her, placing a hand against her forehead. "Would you rather lay down with the heating pad while I take care of dinner on my own?"

"No, Mom, I'm fine now. I can help. What do you need me to do?"

Mary Margaret smiled before placing a kiss to her forehead. "I love that you're trying, sweetie, I do. Keep it up and things might just get better yet for you."

"Hopefully."

"Are you all right?"

"Cramps," Emma muttered. "I'm fine."

Mary Margaret shook her head and hugged her tightly. "I know you are, sweetie. Come," she smiled as she rushed her over to the small island countertop. "It is your father's birthday and I was hoping we could bake him his favorite cake together. Do you know how long it's been since we did that?"

"The last time was when I was eleven," Emma whispered. "I remember."

While they busied themselves baking a red velvet chocolate cake for her father, Emma's thoughts went back to Regina's latest letter and all that had been revealed to her. She hated feeling so jealous over something she had no right to be jealous of and she started to wonder if it all was simply because she hadn't experienced the same kind of relationship that Regina wrote to her about having with Daniel.

It would be a few weeks before Emma replied to her letter, a few weeks before her jealously subsided and she found the courage to write her back and to send along her own Polaroid of herself. This time she ended the letter in a way she hadn't before. She gave Regina her phone number, not expecting the privileged girl from Maine to ever want to call her, but it was there, for reasons unknown even to herself, and she mailed it off three days before the first of February.

"Hey, Em," Neal said as he jogged up behind her just as she slid the letter into the slot. "Ready to go for that coffee?"

"Yeah," she nodded and turned to him with a smile. "I'm ready. Let's go."