A/N: Written for the Mad Swan Secret Santa 2013 for Tumblr user weatherwaxstudios, who gave me the prompt of a Victorian AU, and my imagination went a little nuts…

Writing Emma in a Victorian setting was a doozy. I'm still not sure if I found the right balance between the firecracker that she is in the show, and the kind of person she'd have to be if she was living in Victorian era America. Jefferson, unsurprisingly, didn't really have to change all that much. Part deux will be up shortly.

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Act I

The house down the road at the edge of the woods was haunted, some said. Others claimed that the man who lived there was a cannibal, or a baby-eater, or maybe even one of those vampire-creatures like in the story from the weekly serials written by that Irish gentleman. The official account changed depending on the person you asked, but popular opinion agreed that no one normal lived in that house. But Emma Swan didn't believe in all that stuff-and-nonsense that so delighted the town's gossips, and children. Emma wasn't even sure that anyone lived at number 316 Forrest Road, never mind something so exotic as a cannibal or a vampire. The facts of the matter were these: since the current occupant of number 316 Forrest Road moved into the house five years ago, no one in the small town of Storybrooke, Maine had ever seen them come or go. The only visitors they ever received was Dr. Victor Whale, the physician who came to Storybrooke every few weeks to check up on the town's folk who couldn't make it all the way to Augusta for their appointments. The house never received any post, but the general store on Main Street had instructions to deliver certain groceries and other household items on a regular basis, but aside from that, whomever lived in the house did so without any contact with the outside world.

Naturally, after a week of this type of behavior people became curious. It was only polite to invite one's neighbors over for tea when someone new entered into a neighborhood, but all the invitations went unanswered. This was taken as snobbery of the highest order, and the other residents of Forrest Road had all vowed to repay the rudeness tit-for-tat and refuse any social invitations made over the holidays. When none came to anyone, and when on Christmas Eve no carriages or guests ever arrived at the doorstep of number 316 Forrest Road, the good towns' folk of Storybrooke went absolutely mad with curiosity.

This is when the rumors began to spread; a melancholic poet, a poor old Mrs. Havisham locked up in the house forever wearing her wedding dress, a Russian millionaire, horrifically scarred in battle and heartbroken over the death of his life-long sweetheart, a German spy, escaped with state secrets and hiding for fear of discovery and execution, and the stories only ever grew wilder as the years went by.

Emma had moved onto Forrest Road a year ago, when she'd finally completed her education at Our Lady of Miraculous Mysteries School for Ladies, Storybrooke's finishing school, run by the local convent. She'd gone straight from the dormitories at Miraculous Mysteries and into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Darling as a nanny for their three children. The elder boy, John, was old enough to be getting into real mischief and had told Emma and his siblings with a fevered excitement in his voice that he and his friends had ventured onto the 316 Forrest Road property that day, and they had tried to see if anyone was there inside by peeking in through the windows. Emma had cocked an eyebrow at him from where she sat, mending a tear in his jacket, as he described to his siblings the shadowy figure he had seen silhouetted by light from another window, and how the boys had bolted when the dark figure had moved quickly towards the windows as if it had spotted them.

Emma didn't believe in ghosts. Or at least, that's what she was telling herself as she wandered up the road towards the infamous house at the edge of the trees. It was a large structure, with three levels and a spire standing at the front of the house that harkened to a gothic cathedral. A wall of glass made up the conservatory, and opened out onto a sunny terrace in the back of the property. It was not the largest house in Storybrooke, but at one time it had been one of the loveliest. Five years of neglect however, had taken their toll. The careful landscaping that every other house along the street prided itself on was completely overgrown, and the windows all sported a hefty layer of grime where they should have been allowing in copious amounts of sunlight. The house certainly fit the bill for what a haunted house should look like; weeds in the garden, shingles hanging off the siding, potentially creaky-floorboards along the wrap-around porch, and a wrought iron fence that had definitely seen better days with its paint cracked and peeling and the iron rusting away underneath.

Emma stepped up to the bars intending to peer through at the house without actually trespassing onto someone's private property. The Darling boys and their friends might be able to get away with such mischief, all of them being the sons of Storybrooke's wealthier residents, but Emma, a working class girl and an orphan to boot, would likely find herself unemployed and homeless if one of the Darling's neighbors ever lodged a complaint about her. Still the curiosity she felt towards this house had only ever been growing since she'd started her employment with the Darlings.

Emma had heard all the gossip when the hubbub had first started; the girls in the dormitories of Miraculous Mysteries were all the chatty sort that liked such childish things. Emma had always dismissed the stories as silly fantasies created to bring some sort of excitement into the monotony of everyday life in Storybrooke. But Emma's group of friends would always crowd around the weekly newspaper, where the gossip column would always have a new biography for whomever it was that actually lived in 316 Forrest Road, and Emma couldn't help but eavesdrop as they read aloud and laughed over the outrageous stories. It had become something of a point of pride to the small town; whenever someone new would come to visit, number 316 Forrest Road would always be shown off as the "house of mystery." But now that she lived so close to the infamous residence Emma was finding it harder and harder not to simply go up to the door and knock, and put an end to the mystery once and for all.

And so Emma found herself at the edge of the 316 Forrest Road property staring through the wrought iron bars that made up the perimeter fence. It was Emma's afternoon off, one of only two she got a week, and she had decided that she couldn't stand to be inside for a moment longer despite the grey clouds that hung overhead and threatened her with soaking her one good dress through to the bone. The house looked how it always did, silent and abandoned; but there was something about looking in at the house through the iron bars that reminded Emma of a prison.

Could it be that the people who lived there never left the house because they couldn't?

The thought was disconcerting enough that Emma stepped up and climbed onto the lower rungs of the fence so that she could have an unobstructed view of the house, and therefore banish the thoughts of someone trapped within its darkened rooms entirely from her mind. But the bit of the fence she had chosen to climb was one of the more heavily rusted sections, and the fence gave a groan of complaint before collapsing entirely under her weight, sending Emma tumbling onto the front lawn of number 316 Forrest Road. Where she struck her head on the stump of a tree and promptly lost consciousness.

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It was winter and the dormitories at Our Lady of Miraculous Mysteries School for Ladies were freezing cold. Some of the girls had led an exodus out of their own rooms and into the rooms of some of their friends, casting respectability to the wind in favor of not losing one's toes to frostbite before morning.

Mary Margaret, and Ruby had not woken Belle and Emma when they'd knocked on their door. Both pairs of girls were far too cold to find sleep on their own and they were all blissfully relieved when they bundled two girls into each of the narrow beds and huddled close together for warmth; Ruby and Belle in one bed, Mary Margaret and Emma in the other.

Ruby and Belle had found sleep relatively quickly, after the giddiness at the novelty of the situation had worn off. But Emma and Mary Margaret continued to whisper to each other late into the night.

"I'm going to be a school-teacher, when I get out of here." Mary Margaret said, with so much conviction that Emma simply had no choice but to believe her. They were nearly twenty years old, if they had grown up in wealthier families they likely would have been married by now. But instead they still had a year left to complete of finishing school before they would be allowed to pursue either a courtship or some form of employment. Since the school was run by the same convent of nuns that ran Storybrooke's orphanage, Emma had been allowed to attend the school without paying tuition as the other girls had to as a result of her status as an "unfortunate."

"I'm going to leave Storybrooke, and go to the city… maybe even as far as Boston, or New York." Mary Margaret continued, pushing the long braid of her dark hair back over her shoulder.

Emma smiled at her sadly.

"I wish I could hope to get that far." She said.

Mary Margaret got a look on her face that showed she was utterly incapable of ever believing that things just might not turn out exactly the way Emma wanted them to. It was both endearing and immensely frustrating.

"I haven't got any one like you have, Mary. If things don't work out for you, your family will help you. I've only got myself. There's only so much reliable work a woman can find, and if I fail… I'd be ruined."

Mary Margaret frowned, obviously seeing Emma's point, but unwilling to concede defeat.

Suddenly she ginned widely. "I bet you find some rich gentleman to take you away from here. I bet some prince comes to Storybrooke and sees you toiling away in somebody's kitchen, and he falls instantly in love with you and whisks you away from us to be his queen."

Emma couldn't help but giggle. "I don't believe in fairy-stories." She said, though she still smiled at the thought.

Mary Margaret suddenly became very serious, her smile dropping from her face like a lead weight, and she squeezed Emma's hand tight underneath the wool blanket they shared.

"If anyone deserves a fairy-story it is you, Emma."

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The first thing Emma noticed as she began to regain consciousness was the sound of someone shuffling around on a carpeted floor, then the clink of fine china being set down on a metal surface of some sort. Then a sudden deep throb of pain in her forehead, made her groan. Emma opened her eyes, she didn't recognize her surroundings. It was a living room furnished with expensive looking sofas and arm chairs all huddled around a massive fireplace. She could see a cello sitting in one corner.

Where was she? This wasn't the Darling's parlor. What in the world had happened to make her head feel like her skull was caving in?

Emma's last memories were of the dream she had been having. It sent a wave of nostalgia crashing through her chest as she thought of her old friend. Mary Margaret had indeed found her way out of Storybrooke; moving to a small town just outside of Boston, where according to her last letter, she had met a charming farmer. Emma wondered how they were getting on, she hadn't heard from Mary in a few weeks now.

But then Emma remembered what she had been doing before the dream, and Emma sat up quickly when she realized she must be inside number 316 Forrest Road.

"Ah, she returns to the land of the living." Said a male voice from behind her.

Emma whipped her head around and immediately regretted that decision as it sent her head spinning, and made her stomach jump up into her throat as it threatened to spill her breakfast over the room's oriental carpet.

She must have gone deathly pale because the man who had spoken to her suddenly filled her vision, as he caught her from falling forward onto the floor.

"Easy there!" He said as she helped her lay back on the cushions. "I didn't mean to startle you. You took a nasty tumble and hit your head pretty hard. I think you may be concussed."

Emma waited for her vision to swim back into focus before replying, but found herself startled into silence by the man's appearance. He had a mop of brown hair that was well past due for a trim, and a long shaggy beard that covered half his face. Between the beard and the bags under his eyes, and the paleness of his skin his age could have been anywhere between twenty and fifty. The most striking part of his face were his eyes; a bright blue that contrasted sharply with the shadows of his face. His clothes were well tailored and up-to-date with current fashions, which surprised Emma given the unkempt nature of his physical appearance. However, they hung loosely off of his body. The last thing Emma noticed were that his fingertips were wrapped in a heavy gauze.

The man suddenly broke eye-contact with Emma and seemed to withdraw into himself.

"I know my appearance is somewhat shabby, but I had no idea it would be that startling."

Emma shook her head and mentally slapped herself.

"No! It's not that! It's just… this is your house?"

The man looked quite confused.

"It's only that there are stories about this place…" Emma trailed off, unsure if she should continue.

The man nodded, as realization dawned. "Ah, yes, I am quite aware of what people are saying about me."

He gestured vaguely to the coffee table, and Emma spied the local newspaper, the Storybrooke Mirror, wherein all the latest speculation about the occupants 316 Forrest Road was published in the gossip column.

"So, you're not a vampire then?" Emma asked, jokingly while peering up at him from under her eyelashes.

The man laughed in response.

"I'm afraid not." He confessed. "Fiction is so much more interesting than reality, wouldn't you agree?"

"That depends on the reality." Emma replied, meeting his gaze.

The man smiled.

"Well said, Miss…" He trailed off and stared at her meaningfully.

"Swan." Emma replied. "My name is Emma Swan."

He smiled again to himself, and gave an exaggerated bow. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Swan. I am certain that you'd live up to your name-sake under less trying circumstances than rickety fence posts. My name is Jefferson Dodgson."

Emma nodded her head politely, in lieu of the curtsey that society would have deemed appropriate. But Mr. Dodgson didn't seem to mind.

"The pleasure is mine." She added.

"I saw you through the front window there," He said as if in explanation, and pointed to one of the walls which looked out over the front lawn. It took a moment for Emma to realize that he was talking about her fall. "I do apologize for the state of the place, I'm afraid I'm not well enough to take care of the upkeep on my own."

Emma looked at him perplexed. "You don't have any staff to take care of such things?"

Jefferson made a face. "Err… well, no. And the persons who usually take care of such business for me have evidently not deemed it necessary."

Emma suddenly remembered herself. "I am sorry, it's not my place to pry." She apologized.

"On the contrary, I really shouldn't be so shy about it." He replied, but made no attempt to explain any further.

"I was worried, when I saw you fall." He continued instead. "And then when you didn't get up, I thought it would be best to see if you were alright… the amount of blood in your hair, I had almost thought you were dead. So I brought you inside and I called my physician. He said you were likely just stunned and would recover shortly."

Emma blinked as she tried to digest all of that new information.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Jefferson asked, standing quickly and moving out of Emma's line of vision. Before she could answer, he returned with a metal tray loaded with a china tea set and he placed it carefully on the coffee table. He began to pour out two cups, only pausing briefly to ask her how she took it. Emma remained mostly silent throughout, completely baffled by the strange situation she found herself in. But as she watched him prepare their tea, she saw his hands trembled as he worked.

"Are you from Storybrooke?" Jefferson asked, attempting to make polite conversation while they sipped their tea.

"I am." She said.

Jefferson smiled at her, encouraging her to continue.

Emma obliged a little hesitantly. "…I'm employed as a nanny for the Darlings' three children. They live just down the road, actually."

Jefferson seemed completely unfazed by her occupation. Strictly speaking, wealthy gentlemen, for that was surely what Jefferson must be if he owned a house such as 316 Forrest Road, did not take tea with nannies, it simply wasn't the done thing.

"I see." He said. "So what brought you onto my property so abruptly?"

Emma blushed. "I apologize for that… I – I'll pay for the fence." Emma had no idea where she'd get the money to do so, but she had been the one to break it.

Jefferson waved his hand in the air as if her words could be banished like smoke. When it appeared that Jefferson was still interested in her answer, Emma obliged him with a response.

"I was curious, is all. There are so many wild stories flying around town about you, and now that I live so close by, I just couldn't resist. I never expected to end up in the house, but life is unpredictable at times I suppose."

"Indeed." Jefferson, leaned back into the arm chair he sat in and inspected her. "Well, I am glad you are not hurt, and it has been so long since I've had any company. It is good to see a face other than my own, and my doctor's. I assure you Victor Whale isn't half as lovely as you are."

Emma found herself smiling at him. "Why don't you have more company then, if you enjoy it?" She asked.

Jefferson's face darkened considerably, and Emma rushed to cover her tracks.

"Excuse me, Mr. Dodgson. Of course, it's none of my business."

But he held up his hand gently to silence her. "Really, it's quite alright. I do realize how rude it must seem, but… I have my reasons." He concluded lamely, with a shrug.

Emma frowned, wishing she hadn't brought it up. Her eyes wandered around the parlor and they caught on a photograph of Jefferson as a young boy, seated next to an elderly gentleman. The one next to it was of Jefferson as a younger man standing in front of a haberdasher's and beaming. Emma recognized it as the hat shop near the center of town.

"Oh dear…" Jefferson said, suddenly and Emma looked up. "It's begun to rain."

Emma turned in her seat and stared out the window where the skies had opened up and were dropping a deluge over the town of Storybrooke. Emma groaned, realizing that not only would she be returning to the Darlings' late, but she would also be absolutely drenched. Emma looked down at herself and concluded that the state of her clothes really couldn't be much worse anyway. Her blouse had been protected during the fall by her coat, but the hem of her walking dress was ripped and large smears of mud stained the fabric. Jefferson had stood and was offering Emma a hand up when she turned around.

"We should get you back to where you came from before it gets any worse." Jefferson said, helping her with her coat and hat.

"I'm not sure it can get any worse." She sighed, and Jefferson laughed in response.

"You might be right." He said as moved over to a closet by the door to the room and pulling on an overcoat, and pulling out a wide umbrella and then finally setting a wide-brimmed pork pie hat on his head. The combination of his wild hair, and wilder beard really made the whole ensemble ghastly, but Emma had a feeling the Darlings wouldn't have wanted anything less when she told them who the man walking her home had been.

"Shall we?" He said, gesturing to the door with an innocent smile.

Emma stepped out onto the porch, not looking forward to the, albeit brief, walk down the road. As she peered up at the clouds to look for any chance of a break in the rain, her eyes wandered down to the hole in the fence where she'd fallen. Emma's hand drifted up to her hair unconsciously, and it felt matted with both dried and fresh blood.

Jefferson finished locking up his house, and prepared the umbrella, before offering Emma his arm so that they could both huddle under the canvas to avoid the raindrops. Anyone within speaking distance would have told them that it was highly inappropriate for a domestic servant to be walking arm-in-arm with a gentleman, but it was raining so no one was within speaking distance and Emma found that she didn't care when he smiled at her happily. Soon they fell into a gait that was comfortable for the both of them.

"It's funny," He said after a moment. "This is the first time I've been outside of that house in years."

Emma chuckled to herself. "It did occur to me."

"Would you mind if I –?" But he was already guiding her around, and they stood in the rain and stared back at Jefferson's house.

"Oh good lord!" He cried. "They told me they'd been keeping up with the repairs…"

The second part did not appear to have been addressed to Emma, or indeed to anyone at all, so Emma simply watched Jefferson as he took in the state of his property.

"This is horrific." He concluded. "No wonder people think I'm a baby-eater…"

Then he began to laugh, and after a moment Emma had to join in as well.

"It's a miracle my neighbors didn't knock the doors down and force me to move out."

Emma shrugged, still smiling. "I think they've gotten used to it. If you change things now, Storybrooke will lose a tourism landmark."

"Come along then, Miss Swan." He said, wheeling them back around. "Nothing for it just now, so let us return you to your rightful place."

Soon enough they came to Mr. and Mrs. Darling's door. It was one of the other servants, a young girl named Ava, who opened the door.

"Mrs. Darling, come quick!" The girl shouted. "Emma is at the door, and she's been injured!"

Mrs. Darling and her children emerged from the parlor, quickly followed by Mr. Darling and their cook.

"Oh, you poor thing!" cooed Mrs. Darling. "You're drenched to the very skin."

The children all clutched at Emma's skirts and told her all at once how they had missed her, and how they had spent the whole afternoon searching for her. It wasn't until Mr. Darling cleared his throat, that anyone else noticed a stranger standing in the doorway.

"Oh, Mr. Darling," Emma started. "May I introduce Mr. Dodgson, he is the man who discovered me after I fell and hit my head on a tree stump…"

"Ah, thank you sir, for assisting Miss Swan, the children are all terribly fond of her, and it would have been a shame to have to find a new nanny for them." Mr. Darling said shaking Jefferson's hand, but obviously having reservations about his appearance.

Jefferson frowned at the man. "And I'm sure the loss of Miss Swan would have been a real tragedy in itself. I've only been acquainted with her this afternoon, but I've found her spirit and inquisitive nature most agreeable…"

"Quite." Was all that Mr. Darling replied, obviously not having the slightest idea what he was talking about.

"Now, where did you say you lived, Mr. Dodgson? I don't believe we've met." Mrs. Darling enquired.

"Just up the road, actually. At number 316." Jefferson replied.

The stunned silence that filled the room could have been cut with a knife, and Emma squirmed uncomfortably as she felt all eyes in the room slide simultaneously from the stranger in the foyer, to herself.

"I was afraid she was concussed by her fall." Jefferson continued, reclaiming everyone's attention. "So I consulted my physician, and he said that you must be sure that she does not sleep for the next twenty-four hours, in case the injury should become more severe."

Mrs. Darling nodded. Being the proper society lady that she was, Mrs. Darling was the first to recover her senses after the shock about the true identity of Emma's rescuer. "Of course, we will see that she is well taken care of, thank you."

"Hooray, no bed-time!" Applauded the youngest boy, Michael.

Jefferson nodded. "Well, I'll leave her in your capable hands Mrs. Darling. Good evening, all." Then he looked at Emma. "Good evening, Miss Swan. It was a pleasure."

Emma nodded back at him from where the children still clutched at her skirts. "Likewise." She replied.

Then he left, leaving Emma to deal with absolute mayhem that erupted with his departure.

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A/N: Let me know what you thought!