I miss you too. I know how you feel. The drive back from Boston felt surreal. A part of me felt like when Henry and I would get back home you'd be sitting in the kitchen sneaking a second and third turnover. I admit, I'm still getting used to the change.

Henry has told me to properly inform you that we went on a field trip today. He said he milked a cow there, but really it was one of those simulation udders. I caught Henry trying to taste the water coming out of it. It was very hard to refute his argument that milk makes you strong when I told him he couldn't do that. I accompanied his daycare to the farm, and he thoroughly enjoyed the hay ride. Though Henry and his friends thought it funny to hide in the miniature corn maze claiming they had a top secret search and rescue mission. Sound familiar, soldier?

Send Neal my congratulations. A second date wedding? I can hear August's presumptuous comments and see your blushing face already. I suppose a wedding isn't as cliche as dinner and a movie. In all seriousness, it doesn't matter where we go. Just come back safely.

Regina

"I've never seen you smile this much," Neal commented as he sat down across from Emma, picking up Henry's heart-shaped letter and giving it a read. Emma nearly snapped at him for touching her stuff, tucking Regina's letter back into its envelope in preemptive protection, before frowning as he set the heart down. "You've got a fan back – where did you go to again?"

"Storybrooke." She took the heart back, following its folds and stuffing it back into the envelope.

"Storybrooke?" Neal asked with a hint of a snort. "Is that even big enough to be on a map?"

"Probably not."

They sat in content silence, Emma looking past him to watch the TV or smirk at the taunting from the blue team of the fooseball match. Most of all, she ignored the way that Neal was eyeing her questioningly, his eyes darting to her and down to her letters and up again.

"Hey Ems," he began, wringing out his hands. "I don't mean to pry–"

"Then don't." Her gaze never left the match, but her tone was a warning.

Neal, on the other hand, was known for taking matters into his own hands. He had disobeyed a direct order from August back when they had been scouting out suspected rebellion hide outs and nearly blown their cover. Lucky for him, it turned out they garnered the attention of civilians who needed help to stop a village fire and managed to help them without any harm done to anyone. Still, he had been reprimanded harshly, so Emma wasn't surprised when he didn't give two shits about her own slight threat.

"Who did you meet up?" He asked, scooting a chair closer and leaning in. "You said you didn't have anyone and then you come back and it's like you're a kid at Disney world."

She remained silent, moving her gaze from the fooseball table to glare at the man.

"Come on, I'm not gonna tell," he enticed with a grin, his dimples deep and inviting.

"Tell what, exactly?" She questioned.

"Just...tell," he got out flustered. "We gotta trust each other and watch each other's backs and all that. I don't even know your middle name, and it's been what? Three years?"

"I don't have one."

"Mine is Bailey," he provided pointedly.

"Neal Bailey Cassidy," she said with a snort.

"It's a guy's name," he grumbled, but Emma continued to chuckle under her breath at his embarrassment. The guy was usually so cocky that he could use a couple knocks to the ego.

Still, she felt like she owed the guy. Maybe it was opening herself to Regina that Emma was finally forming relationships in Storybrooke, or remembering August's words as they resonated within her but she sighed and realized that building up these walls didn't really get her anywhere. And it was Neal. She had grown to call the man a friend, and there should be mutual trust between them. But then again she thought she could trust Mrs. Montgomery, a foster mom who actually took the time to make Emma lunch and dinner everyday, until Emma approached her and confessed that Mr. Montgomery had been a little too handsy in teaching her how to bike ride. Needless to say, Emma was accused of seduction at the ripe age of eight and promptly kicked out.

She shrugged casually with a roll of her shoulder. "I told you. I saw my friend," she said quietly, mindful of the surrounding soldiers. "The one I've been writing to."

He nodded, his lips curving upward slightly at finally cracking the infamous Emma Swan. "You knew her as a kid or an old school friend?"

Her lips thinned in contemplation, wondering where to begin and wondering what to leave out. She knew Neal well enough, but not that well. "No."

He waited a moment, but it seemed that was all Emma was willing to offer. "No?" He repeated dryly. "That's it? Come on, Swan, you gotta give me something here."

She scoffed and stood, tucking her belongings to her before a thought made her falter. She wouldn't give him the information he wanted, but maybe she'd let him in just a little bit. Eyeing Neal with hopeful caution, she dug into her pants pocket and pulled out a small card. "Can you show me how to use this?"


Regina pressed two fingers to both sides of her temple and rubbed small circles to ease the headache that was forming there. Her council was a bunch of idiots, taking advantage of the fact that Regina had been otherwise preoccupied the past few weeks. True, she had rescheduled many important meetings for the week following Emma's departure, but she had failed to reschedule a voting that ended up pulling funds from the hospital in order to do road repairs along Smiths Circle. They had argued that Storybrooke was peaceful and quiet where very few citizens truly needed all that the hospital had to offer and that the town should better spend their money fixing up the aesthetics in order to bring in tourists thereby increasing profit.

That was a load of crap since Smiths Circle was a more isolated and residential part of town where eight out of the twelve council members resided. The other four lived on Mifflin.

Now Regina had to call an emergency voting, and though she had wanted to make it open to the public just to show that it wasn't she who was the only cold-hearted politician in this town, she had to make sure the people still had faith in their government despite the majority's idiocy.

Thus, her headache had formed.

"Madam Mayor, you have a call on line one," her secretary beeped in through the intercom.

Regina rolled her eyes and suppressed a groan. She had hoped Elizabeth had some sense when Regina had given her strict orders not to disturb her, but here's to hoping. She pressed the button on her speaker and made no effort to hide the annoyance from her voice. "Ms. Sparrow, please take a message as I had originally instructed you to do."

"I know, Ms. Mills, but I thought you would want to take this one."

"Is it Henry?" She questioned immediately, panic already creeping into her imagination.

"No, it's not–"

Regina overrode her secretary's microphone to speak. "Then what is so important that you can't take a message?"

There was a moment of hesitation on Elizabeth's end where Regina could virtually see the fear in the hazel eyes of her subordinate as she wondered whether to further disobey her. The white noise of the speaker crackled and Elizabeth's mousy voice leaked through again. "It's Corporal Swan–"

Regina ended their communication and reached for her phone, patching the line through to her office. "Hey," she said breathlessly.

"Hi."


Emma stood in front of one of the many pay phones located just down the hallway and across mess hall of the common room after waiting nearly twenty minutes for her turn. There were two lines for some reason, despite the fact that there were at least five pay phones available. Neal said it was because the phone closest to the corner wall by the window was the best spot, and it was an unspoken rule that the time limit on that one was inexistent. She saw a new recruit on the phone there, sitting on the window sill with his back to the line, nestled in his own private cocoon as he talked happily, probably with his mother. Neal had graciously stood in line with her though she could see that he was shaking with the need to ask who she was going to call. She knew he knew who she was going to call, but confirmation would have had the man reeling. Still, he held his tongue. Emma had never made a phone call since she came, and it was pretty exciting to see it first hand.

By the time a line freed up, Neal stood across the hall, holding up the wall with his shoulder as he crossed his arms and waited for Emma to finish up.

She had followed the instructions he had given her and soon the phone was ringing for Mifflin Street. So this is what zoo animals feel like, Emma thought as she looked around awkwardly at the impatient soldiers waiting for their turn. She felt their gaze deepen when the phone just continued to ring at the mansion and Emma quickly hung up only to dial Town Hall. Maybe she was breaking protocol and it was only one call per person, but like hell that was going to happen. She stood in line and everything.

The line rang and rang, and Emma became nervous and a little embarrassed that she had been standing at this phone for so long not talking to anyone. She stole a glance at Neal who had ceased watching her and had struck up a conversation with a man in the next unit over. Frederick Holt, if she remembered right. He was a pretty nice guy, which made many of his opponents underestimate him whenever they trained for close combat. His smile and friendliness was no match against his right hook. She quickly ducked back to the phone, pressing her hand on the wall above it when they turned at her gaze. She only managed a tight lipped smile at them just before turning her back to them.