This will eventually be a 3b rewrite, but first we're going to move through Regina's history as seen on the show- and Emma's corresponding past- right up until the curse. This is tightly Emma's POV so I'll make a note at the beginning of the chapter if there is a relevant episode. This one would take place between The Stable Boy and We Are Both.

I wanted to keep Emma and Regina true to character, which means as much of their canon storylines are incorporated here as was possible. I've obviously had to change Emma's parentage (as little as I could, but more on that later) and there's going to be some tweaking of the curse when it comes, but assume that most of what you still know about both of them is true unless told otherwise.

PART I

Sixty feet. Fifty. Forty-five.

She creeps forward, tracking her progress by the bushes that decorate the land around the castle, the guards oblivious to her presence as she moves through them. Ahead along the road, James is walking with King George, arm-in-arm with a smug-eyed girl Emma's never seen with him before. He laughs, his father scowls, and Emma rolls her eyes, unseen. Typical. James has been insufferable since he hit puberty, and she's had the misfortune to witness it throughout.

Not that he knows that.

She tucks her chin in beneath her hood, pulls her fingers back, and lets fly, her arrow shooting straight and true. It whooshes past James and she smirks when he jumps to the side, his sword drawn and eyes wide, and King George has barely enough time to growl out, "It's him! The Swan!" before Emma's flying across the clearing, forty feet-thirty-twenty-ten, her eyes on her true target.

She leaps up onto James's prize steed- his pride and joy, from what she's heard him drunkenly bellowing with his men in the taverns- her grey-white cloak whipping around her as she pats him on the head once, dodging his sword, and squeezes her boots together against the stallion's sides. "Ha!" she shouts in her deepest voice, and then they're running together, her new horse galloping away as she turns back to watch James and George's outrage and the knights only now rushing for their own horses.

She sells the horse for a hefty sum to a stable near the border of King Leopold's kingdom. James will search for his horse, she's sure, but he's fickle enough to rage and vent and then find new interest. Same for the girl he'd been with, she thinks, and doesn't feel very bad about it. He won't look this far, and if he tries to trace the profits, he won't find them.

She makes her way to the closest marketplace and ducks into a grubby little room, nodding to the hulking figure who's sitting at the table inside, contemplating a chessboard. "Good game?"

"Will's knight has been a menace," he grunts, and the man sitting opposite him quirks an eyebrow and takes a pawn. "Might be time to…" A meaty finger moves forward to push the black queen from its starting place, two spaces from the knight. "Good game?" he echoes.

She slips out of her cloak, tucking it into her carrying bag. "King George's son lost his favorite toy."

Will laughs. "It wouldn't be a good day if Swan weren't a thorn in the king's side." He rests a finger against the point of the knight's horse-head, rubbing it absently. "There are reports of a carriage bearing King Leopold's coat of arms near the far end of the kingdom."

Emma perks up midway through changing. "Just one carriage?"

"Moving slowly. Laden with bags."

She slips into the green dress that had been hanging in the room, closing the catches in the front and twisting it around her before she slides her arms inside. "What kind of idiot travels on the king's road without any guards these days? Don't tell me our reputation only goes so far." Her hair falls around her face, messy and tangled, and she brushes it out with her fingers. "Fine. You two set up an ambush around here. Leave me Beetle, and I'll catch up to you once I've taken care of this."

She leaves the room without looking back, twisting her fingers around her bag of earnings from James's horse.

She crosses the threshold into the marketplace and changes, as simply and fluidly as if she'd been doing it her whole life. Her shoulders straighten, her posture improves, and the hard lines of her face melt away as well as they ever will. She's been transformed from the toughened outlaw she's been for the past three years, the one who's gained infamy in the kingdoms since she'd turned seventeen and put on that grey hood for the first time; and now she's just another villager, well off enough to be mannered and clean, but not wearing anything wealthy enough to be mistaken for a noble.

Little John likes it when they can distribute the money on their own, with cries of, "From Swan Hood and the king!" as they ride through the streets and toss offerings to the poor who walk past. The Friar has his own agenda, and thinks that all their winnings should go to whatever religious structure is at the center of each town and their keepers should find use for them. Emma likes this- walking through the streets, an innocent face with none of the renown of the Merry Men- unbothered and unworried as she drops coins into the coffers of the poor.

She ignores their thanks and forces herself not to look back and let them focus on her face, instead dwelling on the outrage on James's face as he'd lost just one miniscule part of his ever-privileged life. Well. She's never denied that she can hold a grudge, and this one is fourteen years long and has had plenty of mileage since then. At least she's using it for good cause.

Her purse of coins is nearly empty, the line of beggars all but finished, and she pauses by the last of the row and takes a step back when she sees the girl's face. She can't be more than ten, blonde hair filthy and unwashed and her face grimy and bruised, but her eyes are strong, hope still making them shine where others have been dulled. Emma breathes, oxygen catching on something sharp and painful in her throat, and the girl stares, and Emma breathes again and nearly chokes on it and drops her purse in front of the girl instead of fishing out the coins.

She stares straight ahead and walks on until she's back at the room her men keep in this marketplace, finding her stride and pushing the child from her mind as she prepares to rob a carriage full of fools.

The deer that lies across the road is a fake, one of Emma's most valuable ideas since she'd become the icon of the Merry Men and then, in turn, their leader. They'd removed the skin and stuffed it with straw, and it's only noticeable that it's a fake once the driver gets down and inspects it. Which is, of course, Little John's cue and much too late for the driver.

There's a squabble on the road, a brief back-and-forth where weapons are brandished and the driver is swinging his sword clumsily and this is easy, too easy, and Emma's beginning to think that this whole encounter is an ambush for the Merry Men, not the carriage.

She steps forward, about to call for a retreat, when the carriage door opens and a woman gracefully descends to the road. Her expression is amused and she seems unworried by the men fighting it out around her, and Emma immediately senses that she's going to be more trouble than she's worth.

She could run now, but there's something in that haughtiness on the woman's face that's prickling at the defiant child that's still too close to the surface within her, and she's suddenly driven by the desire to take this carriage, trap be damned. Which is maybe reckless and stupid and she thinks she can see the woman's gaze shift to where she's hidden in the trees, but she jumps down anyway, her cloak whipping out around her feet as she lands in a solid crouch on the carriage top.

"It's the Swan!" the driver shouts out. "I warned you-" He falls silent as the woman holds up a commanding hand, his eyes bulging out with new fear, and Little John is leaping onto the driver's seat of the carriage with improbable agility as one of the other men yanks the rope attached to the deer out of their way and into the woods. The woman doesn't move, just cocks her head and stares at Emma again, and Emma shouts, "Go!" to Little John as they take off away from the skirmish.

The woman doesn't follow, and Emma exhales. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been holding her breath.

But they have the carriage, and it is in fact heavy with all the luggage inside. A vacationing noble, probably, off with her riches and the cockiness of the upper class, mistakenly choosing speed over caution and paying the price for it. That's all this is, even if Emma can't shake the unease brought on by that woman- still standing in the road as Merry Men make their retreat, watching them unworried in the distance- and how easily the attack had gone. They have the carriage, they have whatever's inside, and it's time for Emma to climb in and take stock of what it is.

She scrambles over to the window and slips inside, pushing away curtains to inspect the interior of the coach. There are plenty of bags, and the finery of the nobility draped around them. Dresses and jewels and a fat-looking pouch on one seat–

And in the opposite seat, a dark-haired girl who would have been beautiful if not for the blankness in her eyes when she turns to stare at Emma. "Swan Hood," she says carefully. "The Hooded Swan. Whatever they call you in these parts."

Emma stares, remembering just in time to be sure that her cloak is still concealing her face.

And oh, yes, the girl is beautiful, enough so that Emma can't stop looking at her, can't remember to draw her arrow in time when the girl stands up and walks to the window. She's unafraid, but there's a recklessness in her eyes, a desperation to her uncaring that Emma recognizes all too well.

Trapped. The girl is trapped, and it's not just by the outlaws who've seized her carriage. No, this is someone beyond despair, beyond hope, beyond the belief that anyone is going to save her from whatever fate she's been doomed to. No one saves us but ourselves, Emma almost says, before she remembers that she can't say anything at all and she shouldn't, not to this girl whom they're going to have to tie up and leave in some distant town tonight. She thinks back to the beggar girl on the road and to another girl, fourteen and still fighting with impotence, hidden in the back of a wagon full of lumber and never expecting to have hope again.

Emma doesn't reach out to people, even pretty girls a year or two older than her who would probably look so nice with smiles on their faces, who look like they may never smile again. She scowls at herself for even thinking about it, and now she's just standing around like an idiot as the girl is walking through the carriage, about as intimidated by the famed Swan as her companion had been, and Emma can't think of a single way to scare this girl into submission. Emma doesn't want to scare this girl at all, not when she seems so scared already of an inevitability Emma will not allow herself to ask about.

Then the girl turns back to her and says, almost regretful, "My mother's going to kill you."

Emma blinks under her hood and lets out an unintelligible, "Huh?"

The girl shakes her head. "You should run away while you can. My mother's going to kill you," she repeats. "The only reason she hasn't yet is because-" She hesitates, and then that blankness is back in her eyes, sorrow glistening at their corners. "She likes it when you run. When there's some hope before…" She twists her fingers together, something gleaming beneath them, and a chill runs through Emma's spine before the girl looks up again. "She has magic, you know."

And there's the piece of the mystery that explains the woman's serenity even as she must have known that her daughter was being kidnapped and her possessions stolen. Magic. Emma loathes magic, loathes the privilege of it nearly as much as she hates the nobility. Magic had been what had found James when she was three. Magic is why they've lost men near the Dark One's castle. Magic is darkness for those the fairies don't deem worthy to help, and magic only destroys.

She's at the window with the girl in two quick strides, pushing the curtains aside again, when there's a loud thump and the carriage stops short in the road. The girl's eyes widen, and she gives Emma a push. "She's here. Run to the woods, now." Her voice is at once imperious, an aristocrat after all, but Emma can't find the energy to hate her for it.

She climbs through the window, glancing worriedly at Little John as he whips the horses forward, bewildered at why they're all frozen, and then she sees them. Branches reaching from the trees, twisting and stretching out like some kind of nightmarish living creature, snatching John from his place and lifting him into the air as he bellows out a challenge. "Like hell," she snaps out through gritted teeth, swinging her feet out of the window to climb to the top again.

Firm hands grab her again, this time just above the waist, and she sees the moment that the girl's eyes widen. "You're a girl?" she whispers, startled.

"Let go of me!" Emma snaps, pulling away. Her eyes are on Little John but the girl is grasping her arm now, her other hand wrapping around Emma's.

She tightens her grip, the shock of the revelation gone with the approach of her mother. "You wait here, and you're both dead. Go! I'll take care of him, I swear."

And Emma hesitates for a moment, if only to ask, "Why do you care?"

The panic fades from the girl's eyes, leaving only emptiness behind. "I don't care about anything anymore," she says, and something cool and delicate presses against Emma's palm. "For your trouble," she murmurs. "I'd hate to see you having faced my mother with no recompense." She allows herself a tiny smile, and it's exactly as breathtaking as Emma would have imagined. "Now leave!"

Emma leaves. She stumbles into the woods, climbing from tree to tree and hoping to death that they don't suddenly come to life and attack her, too, and when she has a good vantage point of the place where Little John is being held, she perches between two branches and draws her arrows, dropping the girl's gift into her bag before she can look at it.

She's let a single arrow fly and embed itself in a writhing branch that doesn't react to the attack when she sees the girl emerge from the coach, calling out to no one at all until there's a poof of magic and her mother appears in the middle of the road, still with the same smile on her face. It doesn't fade as the girl starts arguing and gesturing to Little John, and then the woman twists her hand and John is suddenly standing where the girl had been, still shouting curses at nothingness as he struggles in place.

He realizes he's free and bolts to the woods where Emma had run moments before, and Emma breathes, relieved, and glances back to the wild branches that had magically grabbed him.

The girl is wrapped in the same position as John had been, her chin high with defiance and the frustration across her face nearly eclipsed by what might be pride, if Emma squints.

And she understands, she gets this girl she's only just met and seen herself in her eyes. She knows exactly what it feels like to have a tiny victory when you're penned like livestock, one single act of autonomy when the people who have you trapped lose control of you for just a minute. The girl is terrified but she's also won, and maybe that matters in the end more than the mother who cares so little about her daughter that she would keep smiling as her daughter is suspended above her.

She keeps watch over the girl, listening to the faint strains of argument between her and her mother and trying not to think about what it might mean that the girl is so calm in this tree-hold, until she's finally back on the ground and the carriage is back on its way to King Leopold.

Beetle is still tied to a tree where she'd left him, a half mile back in the woods, and he chews on her hair when she takes off her cloak and mounts him, riding exhaustedly back to where the Merry Men have made camp. She can see Little John and Will seated around a low fire, telling the others about what they'd fought today, and John beckons her to join them.

She does so out of half-hearted obligation, sitting up next to him and listening as he recounts the story, and she's zoned out staring at the flames when he nudges her. "What did you say to that maiden to have her defend me so fiercely?" he rumbles, and she shrugs, feeling self-conscious in the crowd.

Maybe she's officially the leader of the Merry Men, the one they follow without question and the icon that's left King George and the rest of the rich apoplectic with rage for the past year, but she hasn't won their loyalty, not like Little John has. They follow her because John insists on it, and behind her back she's sure that they whisper about her- about the seventeen-year-old girl who'd taken charge of a group of forest men and given them purpose as outlaws and benefactors to the poor. About the girl who keeps herself separate from them and has no interest in being friends or even family with her men. (She'd had a family once, then another, and the falseness of family and love goes hand-in-hand with abandonment in her mind. Better duty than family. Better dinner on the table than love.) She can feel their interest on her now, their eyes on her cheeks as she flushes- from the heat of the fire, nothing more- and looks down.

"She said she didn't care," Emma finally allows, and then she remembers the trinket she'd been passed. "She gave me…" She digs into her satchel to find it. "She gave me this," she says, staring down at the item as the reason behind the girl's hollow eyes becomes ever clearer, and she can't explain the sorrow that washes over her at the revelation.

The engagement ring in her palm glitters in the firelight, the diamond impressive and masterfully cut, so clear that she can nearly see the reflection of a gilded cage sparkling back at her.