Once Upon a Time in Storybrooke - OUAT DR

Chapter 1 Welcome to Storybrooke

Growing up, I'd always known something was off - I had always felt different. 

And sure, the white streaks in my hair didn't help much, but I also knew that plenty of kids grew up feeling that way. I couldn't shake feeling like my entire life was a lie; like there was a huge piece missing. Questions like "Maybe I have a lost twin?" or "Could I be secretly adopted?" were questions I found myself asking on much too regular of a basis to be normal.

Whatever it was, I always knew my life wasn't right. A week after my 17th birthday, all my intuition was proven correct. The woman I had called mom for as long as I could remember, turned out, was not my mother. I found out she had taken me in when I was 3 as a foster child, and begun the adoption process, but she and the man I had grown up calling father had divorced for the first time before it had been completed and she had never followed through with it. (Yes, they did later remarry and then divorce a second time. This was a lesson that wasn't learned the first time). They weren't sure how, but somehow the system had lost track of me, and the woman I had called mom was able to raise me as if I were her own and nobody was the wiser.

The problem was, as I grew up, I wasn't her mini-me, and once I started having my own thoughts and opinions, my own identity, well, that didn't suit her needs. After years of neglect, abuse, and trauma she finally revealed the truth a week after my 17th birthday, unable to deal with my "failure" a moment longer.

I was pissed as fuck.

I was so "unimportant" not even the system designed to keep track of children had cared to keep up with my well-being. For 14 years I had lived with this woman, thinking she was my mother, the family I'd grown up with was my family, the sacrifices I made and the traumas I suffered were "to protect my sisters" (because she ended up with 2 of her own daughters after all), but it had all a lie. I didn't have sisters, I didn't have a family, hell I didn't even have a last name. 

I wasn't anything to any of them, my sacrifices were for nothing. I hadn't owed that woman or that family my loyalty or love, they certainly hadn't shown the same to me.

The record on me in the system was sparse, but my birth name was Hannah – they had found a small piece of paper with the name scrawled on it pinned to the blanket I was found wrapped up in as a baby. The only thing I had from my birth parents, assuming the scrap of paper and the green velvet blanket in the box was actually from them. 

No family name to be found. 

They weren't sure what to do with me, never having encountered a situation quite like mine before, and it wasn't looking good for my alternative options. Luckily, my not-aunt and not-uncle stepped in and offered to let me live in their upstairs bedroom until I turned 18 on the condition I g0t my GED (as the woman who was not my mother had dropped me out of high school before revealing I wasn't her daughter), kept a job, and saved up money. They helped me get a car and I genuinely owe them a lot for not throwing me into the system to fend for myself. Had that happened, I'm not sure I would have turned out as well as I had.

That year went by in a blur, and before I knew it, I was packing what little belongings I had, saying goodbye to my not-family, and driving out of Oklahoma for good, off to my new life in Washington State. 

The official legal stuff happened the week prior when I was allowed to have my name changed upon my 18th birthday. They told me I could pick any surname I wanted. I thought about it, and by my 18th birthday, I had chosen the last name Swan (after Elizabeth Swan from Pirates of the Caribbean. I would have gone with Sparrow, but thought my not-mom would guess that and be able to find me once I moved. I had an obsession with Pirates of the Caribbean growing up and she knew this). She had been a thorn in everyone's side since she had given me up and revealed the truth, being crazier than normal, and I wanted a fresh start when I moved to Washington, with no chance of the crazy woman being able to find me.