I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Week 3

WEEK 3

**

I still fall on my face sometimes
And I can't color inside the lines
'Cause I'm perfectly incomplete
I'm still working on my masterpiece
And I, I wanna hang with the greats
Got a way to go, but it's worth the wait
No, you haven't seen the best of me
I'm still working on my masterpiece

**

"So this week is Most Memorable Year Week. Any idea what your most memorable year is?" Regina asks her on Tuesday morning after an early breakfast – so that Henry could eat with them – while they're sitting on the back porch.

They're heading to the studio in about an hour, where they'll have to get approval on their song and Regina will have to get choreographing, so Emma knows she needs to have an idea now. But the truth is, she doesn't, really.

"Not many years I want to remember, really." Emma shrugs, refusing to meet Regina's eyes.

"Okay." Regina looks at her, but doesn't say anything else for quite some time.

"You were in the foster system growing up?" Regina's heard this, of course, but she wants to get the whole story.

"Yeah. From the day I was born until I finally ran away at fifteen." Emma nods, still staring straight ahead, determined to get through this conversation without becoming emotional. Emotions made you weak and Emma had stopped showing them a very long time ago.

"I was found along the side of the road when I was a baby. The doctors determined that I was only a few hours old when I was left there. I had a onesie on and was wrapped in a blanket that had Emma embroidered on it. That's how they got my name."

Regina gasps, that horrified sound that Emma has heard from every mother she's ever told this story to. It's stopped hurting as much over the years, just a dull ache instead of the sharp, stabbing pain of her youth, but it makes her wonder again, what was so wrong with her own mother that she wasn't horrified by leaving her child on the side of the road. Or what was so wrong with her that her mother did leave her on the side of the road.

"I got placed with a family right away. The Swans. They raised me from the time I was found until I was three. And then they found out they were pregnant with their own child. Their real child."

"Emma." Regina murmurs, still sounding horrified, as though she knows what's coming.

"They gave me back." Emma shakes her head and swallows hard. "I was three years old. And they just..."

Regina's hand settles over her own, her grip firm, trying to give strength to Emma.

"I was in and out of foster homes after that, but was always sent back for one reason or another. It wasn't... there are a lot of memories there." She admits. "But none that I like to remember. A lot that I've tried really hard to forget, actually. I finally ran away when I was fifteen. I met Lily and we both just decided we were done with the system."

"You were fifteen?" Regina sounds appalled. "Where did you live? How did you survive?"

"There was a lot of squatting, that first year. Then we got my Bug and... well, if we both crammed into the backseat we could sleep and stay warm enough that we wouldn't freeze. That worked until we could finally get a cheap apartment."

"My god." Regina whispers.

"It was okay, though. We had each other's backs, which I'd never really had before. We made it work. And then we both got jobs and... we managed. But like I said, not a lot of happy memories or things we could dance to."