What she found made her breathing shallow and the gears in her head spin wildly out of control. Compared to males, female soldiers were more likely to face harassment from a fellow soldier than get killed in combat. Three times more likely in fact. The number of reported cases of incidents to occur astounded Regina, but the fact that the convictions were significantly smaller made her blood boil.

Dear god, what had Emma been going through over there? She closed out of her internet browser, unable to read anymore statistics or any incident cases and not imagine it to be Emma as the victim in them all.

Bravery was something Regina always associated with the blonde, and Emma being a female soldier, an outed one at that, brought new meaning to the word. When she came home, Regina vowed she'd find some loophole to make Emma stay. Hell, she'd shoot her in the foot or break her trigger finger if she had to. One thing was for sure: she was not going back.

Her wrist watch beeped, alerting her to pick up Henry. Her day spent researching simply added a truck load of fuel to an already raging inferno. As she walked down the street to Henry's daycare, forgetting her car entirely, the statistics rattled off in her brain: nearly 50% of women won't report an incident due to fear of retaliation, 80% of the accused perpetrators remain enlisted, how often rape is the case.

Regina felt bile rise in her throat all over again.

"Regina?" Tina waved her hand in front of Regina's face, and the Mayor blinked, seeing she had arrived to the preschool and Tina had Henry by the hand. The rest of the playground was empty since Regina had been standing there, constrained in thought for so long. "Are you okay there?"

Regina nodded but her eyes were glassy and she reached for Henry with a quiet desperation. "Fine."

The teacher tilted her head. "Would you like to come in and see the craft Henry made today?"

"Yeah, Mommy!" Henry tugged on Regina's sleeve and she robotically followed him and his teacher into the daycare and to his classroom.

Obediently he changed his outdoor runners for his indoors and hung his backpack onto a hook that had a decorated 'Henry' hanging above it. He ran over to a corner of the room where a handmade miniature puppet theatre was located, and in front of the theatre was a table with puppets laying on it. Cloth hand puppets with blue and green and red shirts, peach and brown and one blue faces, string hairs and glued on googly eyes were drying on the table from the excessive amount of glue and glitter the children had used.

Regina followed Henry to the table and crouched down when he leaned over and plucked one from the edge and held it up proudly.

Her lip quivered at the hand puppet in his grasp. The forest green top, stringy yellow hair, and forest green cap was unmistakably Emma, but the added glitter around her neck for her dog tags made Regina grin softly and take the puppet into her palm. "You made this for Emma?"

"Uh huh," he said proudly.

And before Regina could control it, tears were spilling down her cheeks as the emotion she was holding back since three that morning came barreling over the wall she had desperately tried to erect. "She'll love it," she cried breathily, wiping at her eyes.

Henry pouted. "You don't like it?"

"No, sweetheart, I absolutely love it." She pulled him into her chest and hugged tightly, sniffling back tears and struggling to get her bearings.

"Why are you crying?"

It was crazy, really, to hold the Emma puppet and pray with all her might for it to turn into the real thing, but still, Regina tried. She shook her head. "I just love it so much. Why don't you draw Emma a picture of her as a puppet and we'll send it to her tonight, okay?"

Henry nodded and ran to his group's table, bringing the basket of jumbo crayons to him and pulling at a blank piece of paper kept in a stack in the middle. He remained oblivious to his mother whose tears still tracked her cheeks as she stared forlornly at the doll in her hands. The glitter on its chest was still wet, and it would stain Regina's hand and blazer for a few days if she didn't wash it soon, but she didn't care. Because here she was with Henry, missing her, drawing her pictures, and writing her letters, while Emma was over there getting—

"Hey." Tina crouched down in front of her and gently tugged Regina to her feet and further into the corner, away from Henry's attentive ears. "What's happened with her?"

Regina wiped at her cheeks with her free hand, inadvertently glittering her face in the process. "Nothing."

"Don't tell me that. She's my friend too," Tina reminded.

As quick as her tears had come mere minutes earlier, they fell again, only this time accompanied by a half-stifled sob that wracked Regina's body in a way she hadn't felt in years. She fell into her friend, Henry thankfully still preoccupied with his drawing as Tina wrapped soothing arms around her back.

"Is she. . ." Tina cautioned.

Regina shook her head and sniffed back another sob, letting her friend hold her as she stared down at the city rug with streets winding and turning around fibre-encased school houses, a town hall, and police station. A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn't have enough time to catch it before it landed on the carpet, the yellow school bus that caught it darkening another shade from the moisture.

"It's so hard," Regina croaked in a voice she hadn't used since she was eighteen. "It's so hard."

"Regina, what's wrong?" Tina whispered.

But the brunette kept shaking her head, sobbing quietly into the preschool teacher's shoulders muttering the same thing over and over again.


October 12, 2005 — Camp Victory, Iraq

"You think that punching bag has any life in it?" Frederick asked sitting atop the hood of a truck.

"She doesn't." Kennedy watched grimly as Emma, true to habit as she had been a week following Spencer's relocation, knocked the padding out of a punching bag.

For four months, given the opportunity, Emma would hide herself away in a training yard where many punching bags, speed bags, and even an unsuspecting Private needing to spar fell prey to her punches. When they were out in the field, the amount of times she pushed her body to the limits or acted brash left no room to the imagination as to why. She'd never say anything. Just walk into the area in her cargos and tank and begin a work out before it devolved into something a little more personal. Once when Jones obliviously walked up to her and casually asked what happened to scare Spencer off, Emma broke his nose. She had gotten a talking to for that one with threats to taking points away form her, but it hadn't deterred her in the slightest.

Even Neal was only given special privileges enough to leave a roll of gauze on her cot or remind her to eat or the odd times allowed to actually talk to her. But something snapped in Emma, and everyone knew it.

Ken and Fred continued watching her. Upper cut, knee to the ribs, left jab, left jab, right hook.

Ken shook his head and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it and taking a long drag. "She shouldn't be here."

"Are you really saying that after everything that's happened?"

"I'm saying she has every right to go home just as any other guy who gets his arm blown off in the field," the younger soldier sneered.

Emma yelled out, punching the bag with no rhyme or reason, and from their spot across the yard, they could see red seep through her bandaged knuckles. A flurry of kicks came next before the woman collapsed against the bag, hugging it as her weak hits landed, just as spent as she.

"She's gonna get herself killed," Ken murmured ominously. Fred didn't say anything though the grimace on his face said he agreed as much.

"Shouldn't you two be doing something else?" Cabrera grunted, tugging Frederick off the hood and pushing them away from training yard.

They staggered away, Ken taking one last look at the blonde woman before flicking his smoke to the ground and stomping on it with a heavy boot.

Cabrera marched toward the yard and called Emma's name before he truly reached her. She had been jumpy lately at the slightest of touches, and even he didn't want to end up the same fate as some of those punching bags. She turned suddenly, still wary, but pushed off the bag, keeping it in between them. Her stance was defensive, her left foot forward ready to strike with that piercing right hook, yet her eyes were shifty as if examining all the means of escape in the open yard.

The bruises on her face from that night had cleared away months ago, but the scars never faded. Cabrera was a hardened soldier. He didn't say much to his men other than to get them to obey his order, and though he had lost men in attacks or simple navigational drives, never before had he felt like he let one of his best soldiers down until now.

"Mail," he explained, reaching into his jacket pocket and removing several letters.

She relaxed minutely, her gaze landing on the letters like it was her golden ticket to a chocolate factory. Her guard was still up as she inched forward and held out her hand for the envelopes. She never willingly touched someone anymore, and she clearly wasn't going to start now. "Thanks," she murmured when Cabrera eased the letters into her palm.

"And Swan?"

"Yes, sir?"

"You're up for a return home next month."

For the first time in months, Emma's eyes brightened at something other than the mail. Her lips didn't curl into a smile, and she wasn't bouncing with excitement, but green eyes that had become a murky myrtle over the past few months shone nearly jade at the sheer hope of his words.