This author apologizes for the huge delay.

To recap the last few chapters:

Three years after Nicko and Eva died, Emma was able to come back to Storybrooke, now twenty-one years old. She found that her father had woken up from the curse and was the deputy sheriff. He helped take down Jefferson when the hatter kidnapped Emma so that she could build him a portal.

After learning of the death of two of his children, her father decided to check in on Mary Margaret to make sure that she was safe. When they reached her apartment, they found the schoolteacher missing.

I'll continue this story as long as you guys are still interested in it – which would be a miracle, frankly speaking. Whether you are or not, thank you for taking the time to read this crazy foray into what might have been.

Reviews are always appreciated.

Emma's been trying to get inside Storybrooke for three years.

Three years in which nothing good happened. Where every day, the guilt of what she had done, the pain of the people she had lost hammered down on her every waking moment.

For a while, she had someone to drive away the ghosts.

Neal.

(Nowadays she wonders, sometimes, if she ever really had him at all.)

And then she didn't have him anymore. She scraped by, clawing her way up to a decent job, a decent life, all so that she could eventually come back here and fix everything she had screwed up the first time.

And now?

Well.

She's barely been in town twenty four hours and everything's already gone to hell.

Mom's missing. Has been for almost a day. Or at least, it's been a day since they found the empty apartment with the broken-down door and the bloodstains after coming back from Jefferson's personal brand of crazy. Dad's called in sick with the sheriff station and he and Emma have set up base at his flat, investigating leads from there. They haven't told the former huntsman about Mom being missing – it was too risky, considering he's a direct line to the Queen.

Emma's spent the day looking into possible suspects from the old land – people that Dad, as deputy sheriff, can't look into without raising questions.

From what she's found, Cruella and Ursula don't seem to have made it into town – either they escaped the curse like Emma's parents did or were left behind in the Enchanted Forest. Regina hasn't been anywhere overly suspicious recently either. There were slight traces of magic at Mom's apartment, but it looked like white magic – probably left over from when the three of them stayed there three years ago. She can't remember many more people who might hold a grudge against Queen Snow White, which is where the book would have come in useful.

It's just her luck that the book's gone too.

Dad's been looking through the other stuff, dropping a sample of the bloodstains they found with the hospital, working the evidence at the apartment and interviewing her students while trying not to raise too much suspicion.

So far, they haven't found anything.

Emma comes into Dad's apartment at around one after a morning - and night - of useless searching and practically collapses onto the couch. A map of Storybrooke's open in front of her on the coffee table, covered with crosses and notes on what they've learnt.

Twenty-four hours and nothing to show for it.

Time's running out.

…

Minutes after she's come in, the door bangs open.

Reacting automatically, Emma pulls out her gun from its holster and points it at the newcomer.

Oh.

It takes her a few seconds to realize that it's Dad.

Her father's caught by surprise at her sudden movements, nearly dropping the paper bag he's holding as his hand instinctively goes to where his sword used to be, stance turning defensive.

They stay frozen like that for a long moment, searching for threats even when there are none, eyes scanning the rest of the room.

They're both on edge.

To tell the truth, it's wearing her down.

"Lunch?" her father offers after a moment.

Wordlessly, Emma nods, accepting the bag.

Granny's grilled cheese is even better than she remembers, a fact that only partially makes up for how awful today has been while running on next to no sleep. She inhales two in under a minute.

They go back to the investigation as soon as they've finished eating.

"There's nothing recent tying 'Mary Margaret' to anyone from the Enchanted Forest." Emma says. "What about the hospital? Did the blood results come back?"

"Unidentified."

"Hmph. What about on your end?"

"Nothing. It's a Sunday; no one even noticed that she's gone." His voice cracks slightly on the last word.

Emma glares at the map until the lines start to blur, pushing down her anger. "Maybe we've been going about this the wrong way."

He raises an eyebrow.

"At Jefferson's, we found out that we may have an ally. What if they took Mom?"

"Why would you think that?"

"There was no sign of a struggle at the apartment, remember? Only those weird gashes on the door and a small bloodstain that could have happened any time in the last week. So it's definitely possible. We need to hope for the best."

Her father's face twists into a bitter smile, an expression Emma's never seen on him before.

It scares her.

It scares her, because in that moment, even though she knows that he will go on searching for Mom for a hundred years if he needs to, it looks like he's lost all hope. He lost his wife, son and daughter yesterday, and the haunted expression she used to wear in her first year after Nicko and Eva's deaths seems to have permanently settled behind his eyes.

"You really believe that?"

The truth is that she doesn't. Not completely.

The truth is she's grasping at straws. But at least, grasping at straws allows for some hope. Allows her to think that they will find Mom safe and sound somewhere. Allows her to think that they have a friend left in this world.

And however painful it may be when those hopes are dashed, right now, she needs to believe in something.

"I have faith."

Dad's eyes widen and he looks at her with a mixture of pride and sorrow, recognizing that she's doing what he usually does. He sits in silence for a few seconds.

"I can get Graham out of the station for a couple of hours after I check in with Tillman to see how your car's doing. I'll leave the keys by the door of the station and ask Graham for access to the data. Look up any of your mother's old friends that we haven't come across in town yet."

She nods. "Alright. But you don't need to leave the keys or ask for access. That might make Graham suspicious. I'll just pick the lock and hack my way in."

She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at his expression when he hears that.

…

Emma wouldn't be able to recognize half the people on the Storybrooke database if they didn't have such ridiculously obvious names to go with their outdated photos. As it is, with all the Rick Shields and Bonnie Peeps, she's able to get a comprehensive list within half an hour.

She sends a text to Dad with all of eight names and decides to get started.

The first person on the list used to be one of her mother's closest friends. Johanna. She walks over to the house – it's barely ten minutes away.

As soon as it's within sight, her steps falter in shock.

There are flowers in the garden.

Dozens and dozens of them, weaving across the grass, covering any trace of the green.

And not just any flowers.

They're small.

White.

Her heart pounds and she's suddenly short of breath.

Snowdrops.

She finds herself rushing to the door, walking as fast as she can without breaking out into a run, and ringing the bell.

She can't think.

Oh, but she hopes.

If Johanna is awake and has been the one helping her all this time, if Johanna is the person who left the flowers in the white room that night -

Maybe Mom's behind that door, mere feet away.

Maybe Nicko and Eva rest here, under a blanket of white, instead of under unmarked graves at the cemetery.

There are so many possibilities, but Emma can't stop to look at any of them.

The door opens.

There's a woman standing on the other side. A woman with a friendly smile and crinkled eyes and red hair, and Emma hears all of Mom's stories about this woman echo through her head from across the years.

"Johanna?"

Johanna's mouth opens and even before she says a word, Emma's heart is falling. There is no trace of recognition in those kind eyes.

There is nothing.

Only the curse.

This. This is the pain that comes when her hopes are dashed.

She remembers, suddenly, why she gave up hoping once.

"I'm sorry, dear," Johanna says. "That's not my name. Can I help you?"

Emma forces a smile. "Ah, sorry for that - you look a lot like one of my mother's friends. My name is Emma Swan. I'm investigating a case from out of town. If you don't mind, could I ask you a few questions?"

Emma shows Johanna her bail bonds-person credentials, and after a few minutes of peering the older woman invites her inside the house. Emma's mind works furiously, trying to construct a plausible cover for the fairly weird line of questioning that's about to follow. Johanna may not directly be involved, but the snowdrops have to mean something.

"I do hope I'm not in trouble," Johanna says once they're comfortably seated in her living room.

"No, of course not, Mrs Patrom. I'm tracking this guy who skipped bail. He knows I'm on his trail and likes to leave flowers – specifically snowdrops – at his last location to taunt the authorities. He's rumored to have come through this town recently, and so I was wondering if you've seen anyone out of the ordinary near your garden in recent memory."

Well, okay. It's not her greatest lie. But those snowdrops were in those room for a reason, someone took Nicko and Eva's bodies for a reason. What better way to signal that you're an ally than by using your mother's favorite flowers from her closest friend's garden?

The snowdrops had to have come from here.

Which means, that three years ago, their unknown friend allowed Johanna to see them taking the flowers. That way, if Emma had stayed in town like she was supposed to, Johanna would have perfectly remembered the stranger lurking around. Finding the person would have been easy.

Despite all that, it's still an incredibly long shot. Graham didn't remember her after three years with over a month's contact, so the likelihood that anything useful will come up from this line of questioning is close to zero.

Johanna is frowning. "No, not that I can remember. Oh – apart from Wren, of course."

"Wren?"

"Lovely young girl. She comes almost every week to pick a few flowers."

"It's possible that my guy got the snowdrops from her. Could you give me her address and last name?"

"She told me last week that she and her friends occasionally hung out in a cabin in the woods, but I . . . don't actually know where she lives. Or her last name. Dear me, isn't that odd? "

Alarm bells go off almost immediately in Emma's head. This is Storybrooke. Everyone knows who everyone is, where everyone lives and what everyone does. It's the typical small town in that way, if not in any of the others. Not knowing where someone you meet regularly lives is unheard of.

"Could you describe her?"

"Oh, of course. She's about fourteen or fifteen, I would say. Brown hair."

Emma tries to get a more thorough description, but that's all Johanna's sure of. After thanking the older woman for her time, she leaves the house with probably even more questions than answers.

'Wren' doesn't match the description for any of her parents' friends in the Enchanted Forest. But she's definitely involved.

She texts Dad.

- LEAD ON SNOWDROPS. CABIN IN WOODS. –

She gets a reply from Dad almost immediately.

- SAME PERSON WHO TOOK YOUR MOTHER? –

Shit. She hadn't even thought of that. Two parties could technically be involved. One who left behind the snowdrops and one who took Mom.

But she has a hunch about this. Too many things are adding up for there to be two separate groups working at cross-purpose. Too many coincidences.

At the very least, this is worth a shot.

- PROBABLY. BRING SWORD –

- OK. I'LL BE THERE IN 10 MIN –

They'd gotten the sword from where Emma had hidden it three years ago in Mary Margaret's apartment. It had looked almost untouched. They took other stuff too. Emma's baby blanket. A photo of Mom smiling. Dad almost hadn't taken his eyes off that for the few minutes after he saw it.

She starts walking, cursing the fact that the bug will probably take another day or so to get repaired.

The cabin had been on the Storybrooke map, so she knows the way. If she hurries, she'll make it there at the same time Dad does.

…

It has started to rain.

It's more like a drizzle, really, but it makes her shiver, the dampness seeping into her clothes. Dad's waiting for her in the clearing with an extra jacket. She pulls it on gratefully, giving him a small smile.

Speaking quietly, she tells him the whole story, explaining why Wren is an unknown variable. Hence the sword and all the caution. In case she turns out to be from the Queen's side, they'll be prepared.

"Ready?" he asks, after she's finished. His gun is out - as is hers - and his sword is at his side in its sheath.

"As I'll ever be."

They advance cautiously into the woods. The rain hides the sound of their approach, allowing them to move faster. Within minutes, they are mere feet away from the wood cabin that Emma had heard so much about in her parents' stories.

Dad tilts his head at her. She nods, circling to one side while he takes the other, checking for any signs of habitation and finding none. She comes back to the front where her father's waiting, his expression telling her that he found much of the same.

They head up onto the porch.

"I'll take point," he says quietly. "You wait by the door."

She rolls her eyes – she's probably had more experience with this than he has, what with Storybrooke's jaw-dropping crime rate and all – but does as she's told, pressing herself against the wall next to the door with her gun at the ready. If there's someone dangerous inside she'll have a momentary advantage while they're focused on her father.

Dad raises his gun.

And kicks open the door.

…

The first thing Emma registers about the cabin is that it's warm.

There's a fire crackling merrily in the hearth, flickering brighter and dimmer and brighter, a pattern of light dancing across the walls.

Three shadows stand in front of it.

Emma raises her gun at the new threats. She can't make out anything about them - the fire's responsible for that - but something's nagging at her – there's something familiar about their shape, something so familiar –

One of the shadows attacks.

It flings itself towards her father, moving across the room in the space of a breath.

Fear rushes through Emma, but there's something else too; a part of her rushes to catch up with the rest. She can't move, remains rooted to the ground, as she watches the shadow jump into her father's arms, a curtain of dark curls falling across its shoulders, and she doesn't understand, can't process what she's seeing.

"Dad," the shadow sobs.

Eva.

No.

This is a dream.

It has to be.

It's the only thing that makes sense.

This is a -

Then the second shadow steps out into the light.

Emma stares at her brother, eyes wide, mind spinning, thoughts collapsing on themselves. His eyes promise life even as she knows – she knows – that he's gone, that he died three years ago, buried in a cave-in that she caused.

Nicko smiles at her, an easy grin slipping onto his face like it never left.

"Hey, Em."