One
Swan Notes
Chapter One
Disclaimers::: I do not own OUAT or its Characters, just my colorful imagination. This is Emma Swan's story about life in the Foster system. Emma has gotten into a fight with the Charmings and on top of it, gotten into a misunderstanding with Regina. As a result, Emma has run away. While everyone is looking for her, Regina has gotten her hands on the missing Savior's journals. She takes them into her vault and hides them from everyone else. The longer Emma remains missing, the more Regina's curiosity gets the better of her. SQ endgame.
########
Emma was getting upset. She paced the interrogation room, having gotten her parents to come down to tell her what was going on with them and wanting to know what their situation was with Maleficent.
"I want the truth from you! How hard can it be to open your mouth and just tell me?! No more lies!!! Tell me, or I will walk out of your lives!!!" Emma slammed her palm down on the table and the lights flickered.
"If we tell you, everything will be ruined!!! Emma please!!!" Mary Margaret begged.
David shook her head. "We need to tell her. I don't want to lie to our daughter. What we did, it was a huge mistake."
Mary Margaret shook her head. "She will never forgive us! We will still lose her! Is that what you want?!"
Emma crossed her arms as she stared at them. "That's my decision. You need my help dealing with Maleficent, then you will need to tell me what you did."
Mary Margaret whimpered, not wanting to say anything to Emma. She looked away, no longer able to look at her daughter.
David pulled his wife close. "We stole her babies. They were in an egg and had not hatched yet. Your mother was pregnant and you had a darkness inside you with the potential to be a villain. We didn't want that for you. We had the apprentice put your darkness in the egg we stole." David looked ashamed of himself.
Mary Margaret added, "They are villains, monsters so I thought it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't be bad. Her babies would have been like her so…"
Emma snapped, not believing what she was hearing. "Why the hell would you do that?! They never did anything to you!!! Her babies?! Really?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!" She was reeling from everything. She had darkness? But how could that be possible? Right now, she couldn't stand to be in the same room as they were. "Get out." She turned away from them, not wanting to see them anymore. She felt sick to her stomach, knowing they would do something like that to innocent babies.
"Emma…" the Charmings tried to reason with her, to explain their reason for what they did. They told her about the visions they had.
Emma had enough. "I'm outta here." She grabbed her jacket and keys and stormed out of there.
She wished she could talk with Regina, but the Mayor was still pissed off at her for bringing Marian back. She wrote a letter to Henry and Regina. She doubted the mayor would read her letter, but she wrote one anyway and left the letters in Regina's mailbox, gathering a few things, she took off.
########
Henry was disappointed, but he understood why his biological mother left them. He blamed his adoptive mother's stubbornness and blamed Robin for screwing up his family life. He couldn't stand the guy. At the same time, he had no idea what his grandparents did. He just wanted things to be like they were before Robin came along.
It had been three, almost four weeks since Emma left. Ingrid and Elsa were at odds with each other. Bella was in charge of the library and the pawnshop since she banished Rumple from Storybrooke.
The Charmings eventually begged Regina to set aside her anger with Emma and to help them find her. At first, she refused until Henry gave her an ultimatum. Help find his birth mother, or lose him for good.
He'd argued with her and told her he hated how Robin was always in the way. He felt Robin was more important to her than he was.
Regina cried, her heart breaking when Henry finally opened his heart and told her exactly how he felt about her dating Robin and how Robin called her and Roland his family, always dismissing Henry from their conversations.
Regina held a sobbing Henry and promised she would think about this and she assured Henry that he was her priority, not Robin. She would see what she could do to help find Emma. She went with Henry to the loft and spoke with the Charmings.
"I'll help you find Miss Swan. Do you have anything of hers that may provide clues to where she could be?" Regina asked.
Mary Margaret lit up, happy that Regina agreed to help them. "Her journals! I'll get them." She ran up to where Emma's room was before. She found a box shoved in the back of the closet and looked inside. "Got them!" She brought the box down to Regina. "Looks like a lot of journals here. Maybe 12 or 15 at least." She found herself curious about what was in them. She was tempted to keep them and read through them. But then she realized she probably would not be able to read them without being a babbling mess. She remembered that Emma had hinted that her life in the foster system was not happy. She needed an objective party to look through them. "Here you go. Take them from me, please."
Regina nodded once as she took the box. It felt heavy, but she managed to bring it to her car with Henry's help. She drove him home before she went to the family vault and brought the contents down to her desk. She took a deep breath and looked at the unopened letter Emma wrote to her before she took off. She decided it would probably be a good idea to read her letter before she would delve into Emma's most intimate thoughts and memories.
Biting her lower lip, Regina sat down and opened the envelope, and sighed deeply before she read what was on the page.
~~Regina,
By now, you know I'm gone. Please take good care of our son. I'm going to miss the Kid so much. But your happiness means the world to me. I cannot express my sorrow for the whole Marian situation, but I'm not going to make excuses. I know that's the last thing you want to hear from me. Maybe one day, I will be back. But right now, I can not be around David or Mary Margaret. They lied to me, and I need to digest the results of that lie. I feel like everybody has been lying to me and I needed a break. I know it's probably not a responsible thing for me to do. But I had an emotional and mental breakdown after our fight. I just need to recharge and figure things out. Still, there's something inside me that I need to face. Things that happened when I was growing up in foster care. I have a lot of suppressed memories and I need to face them head-on before I can make sense of what the Charmings shared with me.
Anyways, I'm out of your hair now. I want you to be happy. You have Henry. He needs you more now than ever. Tell the Kid I love him. I already miss your lasagna. Even the way you say, Miss Swan to me.
Emma~~
Regina gasped, feeling her throat constricting as she realized she missed that idiot. Even though she was still mad at that woman, she missed her presence. The letter gave her more questions. She would need to find out what the Charmings said to her that caused her to run off. She opened the box, noticing all Emma's journals were numbered. She counted more than what Mary Margaret said was there.
Regina took out the first one, her hands trembled as she held it in her hand. She hoped Emma would forgive her for reading the most private moments in her life. "Where are you, Emma?" She asked no one in particular.
She opened the first journal and smiled when she saw the scrawl of a child, staring up at her. It reminded her of when Henry was a toddler. But that tender look in her eyes turned to sadness when she saw the words scrawled in red crayon.
~~Mommy say new baby coming. They take me back. Don't want me no more~~
Regina could see dried tears on the page. Her heart hurt for that little girl who faced the first of many rejections. She read the next entry.
~~I not allow have my stuff. I cold. No food. No toys. I miss mommy.~~
Regina's hand shook as she brought it to her mouth, covering it. No child should have to go through that. Her heart broke as a mother herself to see what Emma had to endure. She kept reading through the pages, learning more about the blonde, the more she read, the more she wanted to hurt someone. Especially when Emma wrote about being punished and spanked for every little thing. She frowned when she heard about strange things happening around Emma. The scrawling became less childish and older and the spelling errors lessened. Clearer explanations were written, more details came out even though it seemed like Emma was holding back things that happened. She read about the first time she was molested, raped, drugged, and the beatings grew very harsh. It made Regina sick to her stomach. She cried a lot as she read through several journals. Three journals grew into six and seven before she heard a noise. She turned around to see Robin there.
Robin smiled. "You okay? I couldn't find you so I figured you would be here. Want to come with me and Roland to catch dinner and a movie?"
Regina noticed Robin excluded Henry from his evening plans. "Not tonight. Henry and I have plans. Go be with your son."
Robin shook his head. "No Regina. You need to get out of here and stop reading that depressing crap. Let me show you a good time tonight."
Suddenly, Regina wasn't in the mood to be around Robin. "In case you didn't get the memo, Emma is missing. Her parents have asked me to help them find her and bring her home."
"She's not your responsibility. She decided to run away like a coward. Her parents are better off without Emma around." Robin replied.
*SLAP*
Robin was surprised that her emotions had gotten the better of her. He held his cheek as he looked at the fuming woman. "Guess there will be no dinner with you tonight." He turned and left.
Regina sighed deeply. She wasn't sorry for slapping him. It just opened her eyes and she realized maybe she didn't know Robin as well as she thought. She took some journals and Emma's letter with her before she cast a protective shield around her family vault before she headed home. She smiled at Henry. "Do you want to go to Granny's with me?"
Henry finally smiled at his mother. "I would love to, Mom." He sighed happily when his brunette mother hugged him tightly. He missed having his mother hug him like that, and wondered what brought it on. He liked this side of his mother.
They went to Granny's and grabbed a booth. Ruby came and took their orders. "He can have whatever he wants." Regina smiled at her son. "In fact, I think I will have an iced tea with burger and fries."
Henry's jaw dropped in surprise. "What's gotten into you Mom?"
Regina shrugged. "Maybe it's time to live a little." She smiled.
Henry grinned and nodded. "I'll have a cheeseburger with fries and a strawberry shake. Oh, can we share a bear claw?" Henry had taken a liking to eating his biological mother's favorite snack. It was very obvious that he missed Emma.
Regina nodded in understanding. "That's alright, my Prince." She reached out and took his hand into her own.
Ruby was surprised at what Regina ordered but did not dare to ask questions as she took care of the orders and brought their drinks over.
Regina then looked at her son. "I am going to see what I can do to find Emma." She promised.
Henry got excited as hope filled his eyes. "You read her letter, didn't you?"
Regina nodded. "I did, yes. And I found out why she left. But she also hinted that she will come back." Just then, the Charmings entered. Regina sighed. "Just the people I need to see." She invited the Charmings to sit with them as Henry moved to sit by his mother.