"Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I wish I could see you in better accommodation."
Hafiz of Persia

Chapter 1

Emma was not a high concept girl, but she knew lie from truth. And Regina's put togetherness was a lie. All that control was a lie. Regina was lying to herself. Home arrest had removed any control Regina had over her life. The pettiness of the punishment dictated it, deliberately cruel, removing from the former Mayor even the grocery list choices. It was, to Emma's mind, cruel and unusual punishment, though she wasn't quite sure why she should be so offended by the choices the victims had made. But it was somewhat tragic to see the woman so deeply bereft of control over her fate that she controlled whatever possible in her environment: her routine. And this Emma knew because she was paying attention. Regina was her sore thumb in a world of happy ever afters.

It was second nature to Emma to notice the details. That was, after all, her greatest asset as a bail bonds person- she sniffed out the odd like a cocker spaniel sniffs out foxes. And Regina's day did not have a single oddity to it: she got up at 6am. Not one minute more, not one minute less. The lights were on instantly, no need for those minutes to get yourself acquainted with the light, no instinct to curl under the comforter and postpone the day. She did whatever morning routine she had and the lights in the kitchen would be on at 6.34. Precisely. Not one minute more, not one minute less. She would sit for breakfast 11 minutes afterwards, in her study. Emma knew because she could see the outline of the body in that room from her position outside the property. And to Emma's mind, that lack of oddity was the oddest thing she'd ever seen.

It would have been pathetic that spying- stalking, honestly- if she hadn't told herself that she was just making sure that Regina had not figured out a away to trick them. For the first few weeks, she was, she told herself, simply making sure the prisoner remained a prisoner. She was the Sheriff and that was the job.

But then she'd given in and knocked on the white imposing door. Making sure she there was nothing untoward and all that jazz. It was not a bad lie. She could believe it if she wanted to. When Regina opened the door, she looked radiant. Her skin was polished to a shine, her makeup irreproachable, her clothes neat as pin as if she had stepped out of a cross between Stepford Weekly and Forbes. But Emma smelled the lie like a cocker Spaniel would smell a fox. She saw the empty eyes and the built in sadness.

"Miss Mills" She didn't quite know what to call the other woman. Regina? Not really, she did not have the right. Madam Mayor was inappropriate. Your Highness? It sounded cruel even to her own ears. Her self-conscious hands found refuge in her pockets. "Just checking up on you." Regina looked mildly put upon.

"Everything is just fine, Sheriff." She tried to close the door. Emma pushed back.

"Just checking if you need anything. You know…" She stuttered then. What could she offer that was not outside the terms of the punishment?

"Sheriff, I have work to do. If you don't mind, I really need to get back to it." Aaaaaaaand another lie.

"Miss Mills…. Ah crap, I'm going to call you Regina, Ok, because this is just too weird…. Look…" She struggled for a lie that did not sound so much like one. "I need to check the property. Make sure there is nothing funny going on. I can get a warrant if you insist, though…"

"From whom? Your mother?" The words bit but the door opened. Total abuse of power. Maybe the ends justified the means, sometimes, Emma reasoned with her guilty conscience.

As she moved into the foyer she was struck by the smell. Cleanliness. Everything smelled of ruthlessly clean. Everything sparkled as much as Regina's skin. And yet, it all felt as sad as the woman's eyes, just as empty. Just as joy deprived. And equally under control. To the last dust particle. After that, the house tour was perfunctory. Emma's attempts at conversation were met with a stony silence, each new sentence met with a stubborn refusal to talk. And yet, Regina smiled, as if she was hell bent on proving Storybrooke wrong, that they had not broken her, that she was thriving. That they could not reduce her to misery.

It was a tragic smile, all teeth and dimples, but that did not reach the eyes. It was a smile that lacked even the gumption of Regina's scheming days. Emma would give her right pinkie finger for even a self satisfied smirk from the former mayor because with each step into the house, the guilt weighed heavier in her gut.

"Kids giving you any trouble these days?" Regina did not make an effort to reply. She was growing unaccustomed to anyone else's presence. In her mind she had answered. Emma replied for her. "No? That's good. We've been having some graffiti incidents. Those Lost Boys haven't found their way to Neverland... Would hate for your white walls to be damaged." Christ, it was a painful conversation, awkward, full of pauses. "So… it looks like everything is OK. I should just mosey on." Regina looked relieved and Emma could not help it but to impose just to prod a little bit further, to push just one more button. "Maybe you would invite me for a cup of coffee."

Regina's head snapped up and was it panic that Emma saw? "Sheriff, I would hope you're quite satisfied with your search. I do have a day to go on with and it would be appreciated if I were allowed to get on with it."

"Well, so much for manners, huh? I mean usually, when someone comes calling, it is only polite to offer a drink, a seat."

"I hardly think that_"

"Throw a girl a bone, Regina. This is the one place my mother won't come to check on me." She felt a little guilty over the ruse, over getting Snow into the mix, but it was the one thing guaranteed to get a reaction from Regina. And it wasn't exactly a lie. Loving parents came with a very specific set of problems to match their very particular frame of mind.

"I made iced tea."

Emma jumped on the offer like a drowning man on a plank of wood. "Proper homemade…"

"Is there any other kind." Regina deadpanned.

"Sure. The powdered ones, the bottled ones, the vending machine ones…" Regina poured what could be considered a stingy glass, most likely to reduce the time it would take to consume it. But Emma would not be deterred. Between ragging on over the violence that had descended on Storybrooke since the curse had broken and rehashing her skirmishes with Henry's teeth brushing habits, she managed to get a second glass of ice tea out of Regina. It was a half hour fraught with conversational landmines and most of them went by the name Henry. It clearly caused Regina extreme discomfort to talk about her son. It was one of those things Emma had guessed correctly about the woman: she wore her wounds on the inside and they were festering.

"I'm sure you are doing your best." Emma detected some derision in the tone but it was in her nature to offer solace when solace was needed. And a mean Regina was a less broken Regina, so she decided to take that one on the chin.

"The kid loves you, Regina. He misses you."
"We both know that that is not true. Now, if you have finally finished with the tea, maybe you could let me get on with my day."

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~

Regina needed Emma out of her house desperately. She did not want to get used to company and she did not want to talk about Henry. She needed to get back to work. She needed… her day was getting delayed. She needed physical work, desperately. She should go and do… something, anything, because thinking about Henry well, that hurt just too much.

"Come on Regina, the kid walks by every day to see you." Regina's chest froze mid breath. It hurt to breathe as it did during the winter. Her hands shook so she put the pitcher of tea on the marble surface trying hard to control the involuntary motion.

"Miss Swan, that is deliberately cruel and coming here just for that is_"

"See for yourself. Tomorrow on his way to school." Emma rinsed the glass and walked out, giving Regina time. But there was nothing but silence. Had she turned, she would have seen the solitary tear that fell before Regina furiously wiped at it.

This would not do. She would have to stop Emma Swan invading her house. Her day, her precious routine specifically designed to make very little go a very long way was blow apart, a hole of nearly 45 minutes. She needed to get going with her routine, because it was that routine that kept her from losing her ever loving mind.

Wash, scrub, read, cook, eat, wash, scrub, read. Sleep. Or pretend to sleep.

~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~SQ~

Her lights were on at 6 o'clock promptly. She pushed the covers back and carried out her morning with religious fervour. While she brushed her teeth 30 times in each direction, 30 times the upper teeth, 30 times the lower teeth she did not have to miss waking Henry up and getting him ready for school. While she worked her day cream in 25 counter-clockwise circles, she did not have to miss checking that Henry was putting on the clothes that she had selected for him the previous day. And while she rubbed in her foot lotion in ascending motion, she would not- there was no time for it- miss how she would sneak up on Henry to make sure he had brushed his rebellious hair and run her fingers through it to flatten the spiky wisps as he ducked to escape her.

By the time she walked into her kitchen (at precisely 6.34 according to Emma's watch, though this was a detail Regina did not know) she would have almost entirely successfully avoided missing the morning routine with her child.

She took her morning coffee, her bowl of fruit and toast- that she would leave nearly untouched- into her study where she would stay until the next pitfall. The 6.40, when Henry would have come storming down the stairs to sit in the kitchen with his breakfast cereal. It was important that she avoided the kitchen with its breakfast bar at all costs, the comic books Henry so enjoyed as good as there every morning. She would walk to the door and take the newspaper that the delivery boy would toss with remarkable accuracy to her front step and that would give her just enough time to slink back into the kitchen, avoiding the hallway where Henry would have been struggling with his shoes and his coat and his book bag.

Her day was planed to the minute, though she could deny- convincingly- even to herself that she was running from where she could cross paths with the absence of her child. Her life was governed by loss of everything she held dear.

She scanned the newspaper, carefully avoiding the meatier sections which she would save for a post lunch activity. In the morning she savoured the gossip, the fashion, the obituary and even, because she had not lost her taste for irony, the realtor's section.

And yet, though her hands shook and her feet seemed to disobey a director order from her brain, she walked to the window in her bedroom to see, for herself, that Emma was lying. She would prove the Sheriff wrong. She stood behind the curtain telling herself move along, there is nothing to see here. But at 7.43, Henry walked by. He slowed his walk, his small shoulders hunching a little, the toe of his boot scratching at the pavement as if he had half a mind to do something and couldn't quite commit to it. He moved on. He took one look at his wrist watch and walked on to school.