When your world is tilted on its axis when you're a kid, it makes you grow up real fast. Emma Swan spent her adult life keeping people out, but all that would change.

It was her 28th birthday and her boss, Tony, was trying to ask her out again. He was promising flowers and dinner and dancing and assuring her it was going to be a magical evening. She turned him down, no such thing as magic she called over her shoulder. But Tracy, the closest thing she had to a friend, caught her on her way out.

"Why don't you give him a chance, hun? He's a nice guy, good looking, you could do worse." She said with a shrug and a pitying look in her eyes. "I've never seen you so much as flirt with a guy unless he was a job."

This wasn't the first time it had come up, but Emma was not in the mood on today of all days. She blew out a sigh.

"Look Trace, we live in a world where we are taught to have unreasonable expectations of men by movies and tv shows and books. The truth is what we get is not a happy ending but a string of liars and cheaters and it's just not worth it to me." She knew she sounded so negative, especially to Tracy who had been happily married for just over a year.

"Jesus that's cynical, Swan." She scolded.

"Yeah well.. we don't live in a fairy tale." She replied, and a memory flitted in the back of her mind but never materialized. Emma shook her head slightly. "See you on Monday."

After the asshole got wine all over her red dress and she roughed him up a bit for asking her what she'd know about family, Emma was in no mood for celebrating. Still, she picked up a cupcake and a single candle and headed back to her apartment.

"Another banner year." she sighed in front of her lone cupcake with its single candle before closing her eyes and making a wish. I wish I didn't have to be alone on my birthday this year, she thought before blowing it out.

Just as she opened her eyes again she heard someone at the door. When she opened it she was surprised to find a small boy with brown hair looking up at her.

"Uh, can I help you?" she asked him, confused.

"Are you Emma Swan?" the kid asked her.

"Yeah, who are you?" she replied, a little warily.

"My name's Henry," he said with a small smile. "I'm your son."

He maneuvered around her, walking into the apartment while she was still standing there dumbstruck.

"Whoa, hey, hey! kid!" she called after him. "I don't have a son!" she exclaimed. Liar, said her subconscious but she ignored it. "Where are your parents?" she demanded, her voice raising.

This kid was calm and collected and turned asking simply, "Ten years ago, did you give up a baby for adoption?" She couldn't answer, just stared at him feeling a tiny corner of her walls begin to vibrate with the need to let someone in. And also feeling a bit of panic rising up within her. "That was me." he said.

The panic was intensifying and she had to walk away, so she went into the bathroom and taking deep breaths like she had taught herself ages ago. When she emerged from the bathroom he was in her kitchen drinking juice out of the bottle.

"You know, we should probably get going." he told her and she crossed her arms and leaned against the counter.

"Going where?" she asked.

"I want you to come home with me." he said as if it was that easy for her to up and leave and go on some trip with some kid she never knew and hadn't thought about for ten years. Liar, her subconscious repeated.

"Okay, kid, I'm calling the cops." she said, walking over to where she kept her phone.

"Then I'll tell them you kidnapped me." he shrugged, and she thought he was bold and a little crazy but... also had a leg to stand on there.

"And they'll believe you because I'm your birth mother." she surmised.

She knew he was lying but he was keeping up appearances. It wasn't hard to get him to fold. He was good for a ten year old, but she was better. But when he asked her not to do it, begged her to come home with him, something in her chest tightened.

Before she knew it she was on her way to Storybrooke, Maine and this kid - this Henry - was telling her about some curse and how all of the fairy tale characters were trapped in this town by the evil queen, she was supposedly meeting Jiminy Cricket and then she learned that Henry's mother was the damn mayor.

It turned out that Emma Swan did live in a fairy tale. In fact, she was evidently the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming and the product of true love. Her whole world was tipped on its axis again and like the last time it was because of love. Not because she trusted someone falsely, but because she found love in this small boy who had her features and all of her stubbornness and determination.

She hadn't believed, hadn't truly believed in his stories until he fell under a sleeping curse that had been meant for her. Even then she had been helpless, didn't understand, didn't know what to do until the most basic of instincts had her leaning down over his lifeless body and placing a kiss on his forehead and whispering "I love you." It was the first time she'd said it to anyone since Neal, and she said it as her heart shattered into a million pieces, knowing she was losing him right when she was truly letting him in.

And then he woke up. Everyone woke up. And the truth that he had been trying to convince her of all along was staring her right in the face.

When Emma finds herself ripped out of Storybrooke through a portal along with Mary Margaret - or Snow White - or her mother - and wakes up in a land that is different and yet somehow extremely familiar she's initially disoriented. It might be because of the fact that she's being dragged around with her wrists bound by rope by two women who claim to be Mulan and princess Aurora or maybe its because she's thrown into a pit inside some sort of refugee camp. Maybe its because she's distracted by meeting Regina's mother Cora and then Lancelot.

But when she takes in her surroundings - really takes them in - she remembers them from before. "The Enchanted Forest is not as you remember it." Lancelot had said. The Enchanted Forest. But that was just a dream... a dream she had from childhood. She hadn't been back in over ten years, and it wasn't real. She shakes it off, there isn't time to dwell on childhood fantasies, even if she did just find out that Snow White was her mother. They need to get back to Henry.

And yet things are getting more and more familiar. She sees what could have been her old clearing and was that her tree? But it couldn't be. It looked as though someone had tried to burn it to the ground… And anyway could she really have traveled to another realm in her dreams all those years ago?

After torching the wardrobe to prevent Cora from using it, they return to Mulan's camp to find a massacre. Every single person had their hearts ripped from their chests and Emma had never seen anything like it. Well... almost every single person. A hand moves and Emma calls out to the others.

"Hey - hey look!"

Aurora sees immediately what Emma is unable to verbalize. "There's someone under there!" and she moves to help him out from under the bodies.

"Please -" she hears a familiar man's voice, a voice that causes her heart to pound in her chest. It can't be.

"Please help me!" he cries as he turns to look at Mary Margaret who was assuring him that they won't hurt him. He isn't facing her, and she can't be certain, and yet something twists in her gut telling her she's right.

"Thank you." he breathes and then finally turns to look at her, turns so she has an unobstructed view of his face. Her mouth is dry and her breath is ragged as her suspicions are confirmed. Emma Swan is in the Enchanted Forest, the same place from her dreams, and everything is coming full circle because right now she is face to face with Killian Jones.

a/n: This fic was so much fun to write. I have already started on a part two that follows the storyline as we know it but with the underlying theme of them meeting before and maybe some flashbacks on the way (since some of my tumblr followers were none too happy with how this ended). Anywho, thank you all so much for reading and reviewing, I hope you enjoy the final chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it.