Understanding flooded the Sergeant's face as he grinned. "You haven't ever had a letter come in, Swan. You want to know a good trick to stay alive when you're out in the field? You keep sane when you can."

"You write home?" Emma questioned disbelieving. She knew August had just as hard of a time at their foster home as Emma did.

He scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll have you know that my writing career is going to take off as soon as I'm home permanently."

Emma shook her head with smirk, realizing that even here August would wind up by himself in a corner, scribbling into a notepad.

"Write back to her." He squeezed her arm in earnest before pushing off the wall and continuing his inspections leaving Emma to reread Regina's letter.

Maybe August was right. At least now with this Regina lady, she could maybe expect a letter every now and again. It was more than what Emma could ask for, and who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth?

She shrugged and replaced the letter back in its envelope and placed the envelope under her pillow. This pen pal thing might not be such a bad idea after all.


Regina balanced a sleeping Henry in her arms along with a mound of paperwork that had piled up at the office. With some clever shifting, she was able to pluck the mail from the mailbox and let herself into the mansion. The many items she attempted to carry began to give way as soon as she stepped over the threshold, and with her only concern on keeping Henry safe, and hopefully asleep, she let the mail and the paperwork fall haphazardly onto the side table, a few wayward files and envelopes floating to the ground as the sleeping boy whined in his sleep.

"Shhh," Regina soothed, patting his head and kissing his temple. Her smooth humming lulled the boy back to sleep as he nuzzled more comfortably against the crook of her neck. She made her way into the dining room where a small bassinet was placed and gently eased Henry into the cot. He clutched at her finger in his sleep, and Regina took the moment to sit and stroke his tiny palm, grinning down at her sleeping son.

Her decision to adopt had been an easy, if not nerve wracking one. She had waited so long at the chance to have a family, and now that she did, she loved every moment of it. Henry was a crier, yes. His first few weeks with Regina had the usually put-together Mayor clawing at her hair when she realized the boy was colicky. He also had the tendency to keep her awake at night and believe everything in his reach was meant to be eaten, but he was worth it. She could watch him sleeping all day, but the call of littered paperwork had her kissing her son's forehead and retreating back to the foyer to clean up the mess of papers and envelopes she had made.

She didn't notice the one envelope caught behind the side table leg hailing all the way from Georgia as she stood and examined the contracts in her folders.


"So?" August asked as he and the rest of his troop were outside in the unusually blazing sun doing push ups.

"So what?" Emma pushed up, her eyes forward before lowering down until her chest nearly touched the dry ground.

"Why haven't you written back to that lady?" He grunted, hovering on his arms for a second too long as the pain in his leg from a wound received in Korea acted up.

"What makes you think I haven't?"

"Because I haven't seen your name in the mail for two weeks."

"You know how long it takes to sort," Emma pointed out factually as if she had mulled over the same reason in her mind not for the first time. A whistle blew and as one, the troops stood and jogged their way over to the obstacle field course. "Plus, she's a Mayor," Emma reasoned as she lined up beside her sergeant, keeping up with his pace.

"Of some back-country town. How much can really go on there?"

The blonde mumbled a shrug and dove alongside with August to crawl under the barbed wire. She kept her head low and her body flat. Getting snagged while stuck in the mud ruined her momentum. Along with the sporadic very real gun shots sounding over her head, Emma refused to dawdle under the wire.

"Write her back again," August hissed beside her.

"No." Her cheeks tinted pink, but thankfully the mud caking her face hid the fact that she was mortified by the idea. Emma Swan did not beg for friendship. Sure, her parole officers may have said she caused trouble as a cry for attention, but she never went out of her way to make friends, and if this Regina Mills had felt she had done her duty, then so be it.

They emerged from the dirt and sprinted to the wall where they clung to a rope and began climbing their way up.

"Emma," August pressed. "You're going to go stir crazy."

"Bet you I won't." Emma grunted her teeth as the rope burned in her already calloused hands. Her foot slipped, but with a tightened gripped she managed to make her way to the top of the wall.

"I'm not taking that bet." August joined her at the top and the two made their way down.

"Thought you had your vices," Emma teased.

"I like to think I'm a smart guy." August released the rope halfway down the wall and tumbled on the ground before jogging to the next obstacle. Emma rolled her eyes at his extravagant behaviour, but that didn't stop her from releasing her own rope and land on her feet, her knees bending to absorb the shock.

"I know you keep reading it," August said once Emma caught up with him.

Her silence didn't deny the fact that for the last two weeks, Emma had been pulling the letter out from under her pillow and poured over Regina's words. She realized what was so addictive about it; a sense of being remembered and being wanted lingered deep within her and grew stronger with each read of the letter.

The blonde shrugged in reply as a whistle sounded, and without prompting, she and the rest of her squad fell to the ground where they stood for another round of push ups. "I got something," Emma pointed out before dropping the subject, intent on simply doing her training without a nosy sergeant barking in her ear.

She didn't know who Regina Mills was. She could be some old granny person or had a family of her own. She had a son, right? Maybe he wanted to enlist and she sought questions. Whoever she was, Emma had received her first letter from her, and that was more than what she could ask for.


Regina pinched the bridge of her nose, the editor of The Mirror talked incessantly into her ear as she cradled her phone between her ear and shoulder. She appreciated his enthusiasm when it came to investigating the ins and outs of her town, but when he insisted on calling during Henry's feeding time to drabble on about the type of pesticide Mr. French was using for his roses, her patience was wearing thin.

"Sidney," she hissed, wiping Henry's mouth free of homemade apple sauce before removing him from his high chair to allow him free reign of the house. She followed him as he crawled out of the kitchen, much too quickly for her liking, but the gates stationed at the base of the stairs set her mind at ease some. He was preoccupied with the miniature snowman lighting the corner of the hallway when Regina spoke again. "Why don't you file your inquisitions on paper, and I'll take a look at them when I get a free moment?"

"Of course, Madam Mayor," he eagerly confirmed. Even through the phone Regina could see his incessant head nod. "Oh! I was also planning on doing a human interest piece about you and your soldier."

While Regina loved every opportunity to get her picture in the paper, reminding the citizens of her town of her power, frankly, she was exhausted by the little man with the puppy dog crush on her. Plus, she hadn't even heard a reply back from Private Swan. She had done her part, and that was all she could vouch for. Though the idea that perhaps something had happened to the soldier before she could reply was unsettling, Regina simply pushed forward. She had a son to raise and a town to run after all. "That won't be necessary."

She paused when the sound of Henry's pitter-patter ceased. With a hasty goodbye to the reporter, Regina picked up her pace to look for her son. Her heart raced when a mess of brown curls weren't in her immediate eye sight, but as soon as she walked toward the front door, she let out a sigh of relief as her son was scurried under the side table, his back to Regina and clearly up to mischief. She should have known. Silence generally meant he was up to something.

"Sweetie," Regina called, placing her phone on the table and crouching down to his level. "What are you doing here?"

Henry turned his head, a corner of an envelope sodden in his mouth. His eyes were wide and curious, but that didn't stop the little munchkin from chomping away on his new treasure.

"Henry," Regina quietly scolded as she retrieved the letter from his mouth with some effort. "If you were still hungry, why didn't you say so?"

He babbled as he used his mother to pull himself up, reaching for the letter.

She shook her head lightly. "Can you say that, dear? Hungry? Hun-gry."

Her only response came from Henry blowing raspberries, spittle marring Regina's made up face. He was already distracted from the letter by his mother's necklace as he tugged on it and attempted to put it in his mouth. "We're getting there," Regina reassured, easing the necklace from his mouth.

She scooped him up in one arm and stood, bringing them into the living room where she sat him down on the puzzle-piece padding on the floor. Wincing at the wet letter in her grasp, her lips parted to see that it was from Private Swan.

She tore open the envelope quickly and winced again to see that it was dated nearly two months back. Oh dear god, had it been lost for that long? Her eyes scanned over the page, taking in the messy scrawl of Private Swan's print.

October 19 2001

Hi,

I gotta be honest, I don't really know what to say in these. No problem, I guess. I appreciate your thanks.

It's nice to meet you, Regina. Sort of. I mean, not that meeting you isn't nice, just that it's like an unofficial meeting via letters. I think by now you've realized that not only is my chicken scratch illegible, but I've also lost the handbook on Writing a Letter 101, so you'll have to excuse me on that.

Yours is actually the first letter I've ever gotten since I enlisted. Thank you for that.

I don't really have a family to write home to, and my sergeant who's like my brother, well, he's here with me, and he encouraged me to put my name on the pen pal list, so to speak, so here we are.

I haven't heard of Storybrooke, though it sounds like they've got themselves a fine mayor on their hands. I was born in Maine, coincidentally enough, but I've lived in so many different cities before I settled down in Boston and got my first taste of boot camp.

And to answer your question, though I'm sure you might have guessed already, I don't have kids. Remember, if your kid is as mischievous as you say, he's probably just an evil genius. Not that your kid is evil. I'm sure he's sweet.

Thank you for your letter. Seriously. It's probably one of the highlights of my day.

From,

Pr. Emma Swan

It was dated a few days after she had sent her own letter, and the gnawing unsettled feeling in her stomach only grew more as realization set in. She wasn't particularly fond of this pen pal assignment when Sidney had brought it up, but knowing that this soldier, this Emma Swan had received her first piece of mail from Regina, and Regina had gone two months without answering made the brunette feel uncharacteristically guilty. What must Private Swan think of her? Probably what the rest of the town thought of her. Uptight. Indifferent. Cold. If it weren't for Henry, the citizens of Storybrooke would have been convinced Regina Mills could care for no one.

But apparently this soldier was an exception to that rule.

A thought sprung to mind as she watched Henry play with a wooden toy car, alternating between driving it and placing it in his mouth. "Henry?" She called as she folded the letter carefully, mindful of the wet spot on it before tucking it under her arm. "Would you like to help Mommy write a letter?"

His single-toothed grin was her only confirmation, so picking her son up under his arms, she carried him into her office and pulled out her best stationary.