"That's a talent of more than just a babysitter, dear."

Emma blushed, hugging her knees closer to her chest.

After a long moment, Regina spoke. "Will you be there when I wake up too?"

Emma laughed once. "I'll be there when you sleep too." She squinted and knocked herself on the head with a closed fist. "That sounded less creepy before I said it out loud."

"Well, you've managed to channel your inner Santa Claus, I'll give you that."

"So does that mean you've been a good girl?"

Regina chuckled darkly, her husky tone unmistakably coy. "And if I've been naughty?"

Emma bit her lip, heat flaring in her chest and spitting outward throughout her entire body. "You're gonna be in a lot of trouble when I get home."

Regina laughed, rich and happy and carefree, like Emma wasn't halfway across the world and was just out of town on business, a laugh that held so much and expected even more and Emma was ready to deliver. "I can't wait."


"All right, you did ten right?" Emma held up both hands showing all ten of her ungloved fingers.

The boy, Ibrahim, Emma had learned after weeks of occasional play, and his friends had been playing soccer every day after their schooling, despite their teacher's and parents' protests. Most times, they would kick the ball over to Emma as she passed who kicked it back to them, and somehow, just by passing it back and forth, they'd begin playing a mini-game with imaginary nets and boundaries carved into the sand.

Today though, Ibrahim had challenged Emma in a game of keep-ups, and not for the first time during their play did Emma scold herself for being too competitive. The kid clearly practiced if his easy ten bounce streak was anything to go by. Why Emma thought he was just some kid playing soccer in the street was beyond her. Hell, she could be playing with the next David Beckham for all she knew.

She rolled the ball between her palms, getting a feel for the plastic as if channeling that energy to her limbs and joints. She could shoot a bullseye fifty feet away with high winds, but god forbid she try to keep a ball bouncing on her knee for longer than a minute.

"You're gonna lose, Swan," Neal heckled at her, sitting amidst the teens who had come to watch the sport. He looked to a teen boy beside him and smirked in Emma's direction. "She's gonna lose."

"Lose," the teen repeated carefully.

Neal laughed and Emma glared. Kennedy watched on silently, sitting in the bed of the truck sipping on the water, providing no commentary or reaction. He shook his head and pulled his cap low over his head and remained that way.

She bounced the ball on her right knee, then left, then twice on her right before twisting her left leg so the inner side of her boot caught the descending ball and bounced it high enough to shift her left knee under it and keep it airborne.

"Sitta." the children chanted. She bounced it on her left knee again.

"Seven," Neal joined in.

It hit her right knee (Thamaaniya) with more impact and Emma ducked to get under it, bouncing it off her helmet (tis'a). Plastic against Kevlar the ball flying, and she raced to get under it, shooting out her leg and catching the ball with the tip of her boot.

"'ashara!"

"Yeah!" Emma fist pumped, but her victory cut short when half a second later she watched the ball fly toward the women of the village, congregated together with their babies and laundry. They screamed when the ball flew between them, seemingly out of nowhere, and scattered away like a grenade had been dropped. Buckets of water spilled, and baskets of laundry were toppled over. Babies were crying in their startle, and if Emma hadn't been the cause of it all, she would have found it funny.

Neal was holding his sides in laughter, and the children were clutching at their mouths trying not to laugh. Some had even started to whisper and ooh. Emma had never felt more like a kid in trouble than now.

She jogged over to the women, arms outstretched in peace as she bent to pick up the ball. "Sorry," clearing her throat she repeated herself in the little Arabic she knew. "Āsif!" She held the ball up and tossed it from hand to hand and explained in English. "Playing."

Ibrahim ran over as her saving grace and quickly explained to a younger woman whom Emma deduced to be his mother what they had been doing. The women of the village scowled at their frivolous play, but said nothing more as they picked up their fallen loads and continued on with their duties. Emma motioned to a bucket, devoid of water, and spoke to Ibrahim's mother. "Help? Can I help you fill it?"

The boy had caught on and quickly translated for Emma. His mother looked uncertain, and to Emma's surprise, nodded warily. She grinned and picked up the bucket, walking the distance to the lone watering pump with mother and son. "Ibrahim," Emma began to his mother, "he's a good soccer player."

She looked confused and pulled him closer to her, but Emma just said his name again and pointed to the ball in his hand and gave them a thumbs up. He grinned proud, and his mother nodded understandingly.

When the pump was in sight, Emma faltered when she saw Spencer standing next to it, hovering by the lever as if guarding the supply. She held her chin up, edged closer to Ibrahim and his mother and walked on forward. "Excuse me, sir."

He didn't move. "Swan." He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at Emma and the locals behind her. "Shouldn't you be with Mr. Davis?"

"I was on my way over there, sir. I'm just helping them get some water."

"They don't have arms?" Spencer questioned, stepping right into Emma's space. "They don't know how to pull a lever?" He ducked his head so his hot breath cascaded down Emma's chin. She held her stance and didn't blink. "Or is she your girlfriend?" He spat menacingly.

She blinked and waited. "No."

"No, what?"

"No, sir."

He scoffed. "Really? She'd be pretty if she took off her turban."

"Hijab."

"What?"

"It's a hijab." She ground her teeth and continued to stare past him. "Sir."

"I don't give a damn what it's called, soldier," he yelled in her face so loudly that Ibrahim and his mother jumped. He grabbed the bucket from Emma's grip and forced it into the mother's hands and motioned to the pump.

"Sir, they'll get the water. I think we should report to—"

Spencer laughed. "You think? That's the problem, Swan, when someone like you or like them start to think." He glared at the family and barked as mother and son just stood there. "Go on!"

They yelped and Ibrahim hid behind his mother. A man called out in the distance, and Emma could see just from the resemblance alone it was the boy's father making his way over to them. Spencer growled and took a step toward the two locals by the pump. Emma had no idea what his intentions were, but the feeling in her gut told her it wasn't good. He stepped in between them, placed her hands on her General and pushed. "Leave them alone," she warned.

The push was half-assed, mainly meant to put herself between a threat, but Spencer looked down at his chest as if he'd been burned. "Stand down."

"I'm sorry, sir, but—"

He didn't give Emma time to explain before he grabbed the back of Emma's neck tight and pushed her forward, leading them back the way she had come. When she tried to look back, she only had enough time to glimpse a fearful Ibrahim, his wide-eyed mother, and his father who was speaking animatedly, pointing at their retreating figures before Spencer forced her chin forward.

They made it back to the schoolyard where the children had gone home leaving Kennedy still sitting in the bed of the truck, napping.

Every time she tried to walk freely in whatever direction she thought they were travelling, Spencer squeezed tighter and pushed her forward, making her miss a step and stumble over her own feet. Finally they made it into the empty school house, and Spencer slammed the door behind them, shoving Emma into the room with little fanfare.

The school wasn't anything like Emma was used to. There wasn't a chalkboard or desks facing the teacher. Quite frankly it looked like a living room, with a rug at its centre, a few chairs lined around the edges, and a table in the corner. The final thing Emma noticed was the fact that there was only one door in the whole room. One door that allowed entrance, and more importantly, exit, and Spencer was standing between Emma and her escape.

She stood on the rug and stared down the man, waiting for him to explain.

"Do you think I'm stupid, Swan?" Spencer began, holding his ground nearly halfway across the room, but his projected voice made it seem like he was yelling right in her ear. "Do you think after serving for the past thirty years with some of the greatest men I've ever known, shot at, spat at, bombed, evading capture, that I'm stupid enough to be blind to what's going on around me?"

"I never implied you were, sir."

"I don't like you, Swan."

"Because I think?" Her voice was a controlled flatness, but even she could hear the impassioned dare in her tone.

He scoffed and took two steps closer. "Because you think you're special. A woman in the army, in my troop," he sneered vindictively and took another heavy step forward. "Some people think you're brave. But I saw it immediately. A dyke."

She took a calculated step backward but didn't reacted to his words. Don't let him get the upper hand. Don't let him think he's affecting her.

"Why else would a girl like you want to play with men?" He was on the carpet now, six paces away from the smaller woman who maintained that distance, taking steps back for every step forward. "It's a shame, really," he mused to himself in a quiet voice. "What a waste of such a pretty girl."

Emma suddenly wasn't there. Spencer was replaced by her second foster father, Alan Montgomery, thin with glasses, friendly, used to play Shoots and Ladders with her. He also used to sneak into her room whenever his wife was working those late shifts at the laundromat. He was a man she could never forget but had so desperately tried to bleach from her mind. Seven years old and defenceless. Vulnerable. Alone in her room. No one to believe her. No one to care about her screams.

Then Emma was there. Twenty-one years old. More often than not armed to the teeth with guns and bullets with padded armour around her, yet she was still that scared little girl with no exit. Vulnerable. Alone.

"Stop." It wasn't more than a whisper, but her brain could only tell her body to retreat to safety that wasn't there.

"And you know it too," Spencer continued. She hadn't realized she had backed herself into the corner until she felt the press of the lone table at the edge of her hip. Never before had she wanted her gun on her than right now, but it sat alone in the bed of the truck, forgotten for a game of keep-ups. "You know just how pretty you are, yet you refuse to share yourself."

"No." Emma finally found her voice, shaky and quivering, but there. "No."

"No?" Spencer repeated, off the carpet now and removing his helmet, tossing it onto a nearby chair. "No, you're going to share?"

She was firm now, back straight as she glared him down. "Back away, sir."

"I don't take orders from you," he said in a low growl. "It's the other way around. Like it should be."

She pushed off the table to side-step him, but as soon as she was an inch closer he gripped her arm and waist hard and slammed her back against the table, the corner digging into her spine. She yelled out in pain and surprise, but instinct took over, and she used her free hand to backhand him across the cheek. "Let go."

His jaw barely moved from her hit, and for a second, Emma almost regretted her decision to attack, but the grip he still had on her waist and the slowly forming sinister smirk on his face ignited warning signs in her head to get the hell out of there.

"Let me go," she said again, louder this time, pushing roughly at his shoulders with one arm.

His fist connected with her face, a resounding crack where his knuckles met her cheek, and though she had taken hits before, this pain shot straight through her like a freight train. Her eyes couldn't help but water, and despite the haziness, she retaliated. She threw a punch and missed dearly when Spencer's fist connected with her gut. She doubled over in pain and felt fingers threading through her hair to yank her back upright, her back arched painfully. Her scream echoed around the empty classroom as she instinctively reached for his fingers but kept her legs flailing, her boot catching his knee. He faltered for a moment, and with a growl, slammed her head into the table.