Emma Swan

'''"Just because you believe something doesn't make it true."

- Emma to Henry  Emma Swan' is the main character and protagonist of Once Upon A Time''. She was a bail bonds collector, before moving to Storybrooke and is the biological mother of Henry Mills, whom she gave up for adoption ten years prior to the Pilot. She is also the daughter of Snow White and Prince James "Charming".

Season One
Emma Swan was born to Snow White and Prince James during a time of much turmoil in Fairytale Land. Just nine months prior, the Evil Queen had threatened to destroy the happiness all inhabitants of the fairytale world. Rumpelstiltskin prophesied that, if Emma was saved, she would come back for them on her twenty-eighth birthday.

Emma is born on the day that the Evil Queen casts a dreadful Dark Curse over all the land. The original plan was to send Snow White into a magical wardrobe that would save someone from the curse, but Prince James and Snow both agreed that Emma would be the one to go into the wardrobe.

Prince James just manages to lock Emma in the wardrobe before some of the Evil Queen's guards stab him. He stays conscious long enough to see that, when they wrench the wardrobe's door open, Emma was gone. Then he falls unconscious as the Dark Curse envelops them all.

Meanwhile, Emma as a newborn was lying on the side of a highway in America. Luckily, a seven-year-old boy found her and rescued her. Emma was then placed in foster care for sixteen years and had a horrible time there. She eventually escaped the system at sixteen and, two years later, wound up pregnant with a baby boy. She gave birth to him in prison and gave him up in a closed adoption, because she wanted him to have a chance at a better life.

Emma becomes a bail-bonds-person and goes after a man named Ryan on her birthday. After she catches him, Ryan insults her, and she decks him. Once she turns him in to the authorities, she heads back for her flat and brings out a cupcake to celebrate her twenty-eighth birthday. She lights the candle, closes her eyes, and silently wishes that she wouldn't be alone on her birthday.

Just as she wishes that, someone knocks on the door. She opens it to see a little kid who introduces himself as Henry, the child that she gave up for adoption ten years ago. Emma panics and retreats into the bathroom. When she returns, she threatens to call the police, and Henry counters that he'll tell them that she kidnapped him. She tells him about her superpower and he pleads with her to come with him to Storybrooke, Maine. Emma gives in and agrees to drive him back to Storybrooke.

While they're driving, she notices him reading a book and questions him about it. He tells her about the Dark Curse and how all the fairytale characters were trapped on earth and how every single story in that book was true. He even mentions that she was in that book, but Emma is still skeptical. Henry dares her to see if he was lying and she makes up a flimsy excuse.

They reach Storybrooke and Emma asks for Henry's address. When he refuses to give it to her, she stops and gets out of the car. While they're talking, Archie Hopper spots Henry and comes up to them. Emma asks him for Henry's address and Archie tells her, asks Henry not to lie, and walks away.

Henry insists that Archie is Jiminy Cricket, and that no one in this town remembers who they really were in Happily Ever After, and also adds that they couldn't leave Storybrooke or bad things would happen. Emma takes him to Mayor Regina's house. Regina comes out and hugs him, but Henry quickly pulls away and runs back inside. Regina thanks Emma for bringing her son home and invites her inside for a glass of apple cider.

She explains that she didn't know who Henry's parents were and that the records of the parents were sealed. Emma assures Regina that she has nothing to worry about, and that the father doesn't even know that Henry exists. The mayor explains that she's strict with Henry but she wants him to excel in life. When Emma comments on Henry's claims about fairy tales, Regina says that she has no idea what she's talking about.

She invites Emma to leave and the bail bondsman goes out to her car. As she turns back, she sees Henry in his bedroom window, watching her. As Emma drives out of town, she realizes that Henry left his book on the car seat. She looks up and sees a wolf on the road ahead of her. The car goes out of control and hits the town marker, knocking Emma unconscious.

She wakes up in a jail cell, where she officially meets Sheriff Graham. Graham explains that she destroyed the Storybrooke sign, and she tells him that there was a wolf in the middle of the road. Graham scoffs, because there are no wolves in Storybrooke, and says that she was probably drunk on the mayor's cider.

Just then, Regina comes and says that Henry has run away again. Emma offers to help and, after some snooping, go to Mary Margaret Blanchard because Henry had stolen her credit card to make a payment to a birth-mother tracking site. When the two are alone, Mary Margaret suggests to Emma to check Henry's castle.

After she brings Henry home, she and Regina get into an argument. Emma becomes angry and heads to Granny's Bed and Breakfast, where she meets Ruby and Granny arguing. She requests a room and Mr. Gold, who was collecting the rent from Granny, comes up and wishes her an enjoyable stay. The clock starts ticking once Granny hands the room key to Emma.

The next morning, Regina knocks on the door and gives Emma a basket of honey crisp apples and explains that they were from a tree she had nurtured since she was a little girl. She also thinks that Emma will enjoy them on her way back to Boston.

Emma points out that Regina telling her to leave is just encouraging her to stay, and that she wants to stay and make sure her biological son is okay. When Regina says that she has things under control, Emma asks what she means and Regina says that she has the boy in therapy and warns Emma not to underestimate her power.

Emma goes to Granny's Diner and is about to eat the apple when Ruby, who works there, gives her a hot chocolate and tells her that she has an admirer. Emma turns around to see Graham, but he didn't give her the hot chocolate. Henry stands up and announces that he was the one who ordered her the hot chocolate, then invites her to walk him to school.

On their way to school, she is about to eat the apple again, but Henry grabs it and throws it over his shoulder. They talk about the Dark Curse that had settled over Storybrooke and Henry suggests the codename "Operation Cobra" because it would keep the Evil Queen off their trail. Henry then shows her pictures of her newborn self and talks about her parents, Prince James and Snow White.

Once they get to school, Mary Margaret spots them and comes over. Henry runs to join the other kids, and Mary Margaret begins talking about his fairytale theory. Emma asks her who he thinks she is, and she replies, "Snow White," leaving Emma in shock. When she asks her who Henry thinks she is, the blonde lies and says that she isn't in the book.

She then goes to find Henry's therapist, Archie Hopper, and they talk about the book. Before she leaves, he gives her some files about Henry, saying "he talks about you a lot." Once Emma is gone, Archie phones Regina to tell her about it.

As Emma is reading the file, Graham walks in her room and asks to check her room for the "stolen files" and arrests her once he finds them. Emma claims that Regina set her up, but doesn't resist the arrest. They go to the police station, where Graham takes a few "mug shots" and they talk about Regina.

Mary Margaret and Henry come to bail her out, and she goes back to the inn, where she is evicted by Granny because of their "no-felony policy." Emma heads to Regina's house in order to confront her. Instead, they go to Regina's office and talk about Henry, where she indirectly calls him crazy.

Unfortunately, Henry overhears and runs upstairs. She realizes that the mayor set it all up and calls her soulless before leaving. After a pep talk from Mary Margaret, Emma reads the storybook pages with her in them and then burns them afterward. She talks to Henry, he forgives her, and they continue on with Operation Cobra.

That night, Mary Margaret walks past her car and sees how she was out of a place to stay, and invites her to become roommates with her. Emma accepts the offer. The next day, she helps Henry convince Mary Margaret to read to a comatose John Doe, who Henry claims is Prince James. When John Doe wakes up from his coma and escapes from the hospital, she helps Henry, Sheriff Graham and Mary Margaret look for him.

Once they locate and return John Doe to the hospital, Regina comes with a blonde woman, Kathryn Nolan, who is John Doe's - actually named David Nolan - wife. Emma is suspicious, but lets it slide.

The next day, she is walking Henry to school when Sheriff Graham comes up in his car, sirens blazing. When she asks him why he had the sirens on, he replies that it was hard to grab her attention. He says he was impressed by her performance in the John Doe case and offers her the position of deputy. She says she'll think about it and goes to Granny's Diner.

There, she spills hot chocolate all over her shirt and Ruby tells her that there's a laundry machine in the back. Emma goes to change her shirt and finds Ashley Boyd, a nineteen year-old pregnant maid, doing laundry. As Emma is changing, Ashley starts talking about her contractions and says that the doctors believe the baby could come any day.

She starts talking about how no one thinks that she could take care of the baby properly, and Emma gets fed up. She asks Ashley how old she is, then proceeds to give her a harsh pep talk, which inspires Ashley. That night, Ashley breaks into Mr. Gold's shop to steal a piece of paper and pepper-sprays him when he catches her.

Emma is at Mary Margaret's house when Mr. Gold arrives, asking for her help to track down Ashley. Emma, with the help of Henry, goes all around town asking for Ashley's whereabouts, when she figures out that Ruby lent the girl her car so she could go to Boston. Henry reminds Emma that the curse keeps people from leaving Storybrooke, and the two go after Ashley.

They find Ruby's car in a ditch and Ashley sitting away from it, almost ready to give birth. Emma drags her to her car and goes straight to the hospital. Henry realizes that Emma could leave Storybrooke, which further cements the fact that she was the savior. The doctor comes in and announces that Ashley delivered a healthy baby girl. Mr. Gold comes to collect the baby, but Emma steps in and agrees to owe him a favor if he will tear the contract up. Mr. Gold leaves, and Sean Herman and Ashley reunite.

The next day, she is putting on her deputy badge when there is a large earthquake in Storybrooke. She and Graham discover that an old mine fell in.

A few nights later, she is talking to Mary Margaret when Henry runs in, tearful. He tells them about Archie Hopper calling him crazy, and Emma goes to Archie's office to tell him off. While in the midst of an argument, they learn that Henry has run away to the sinkhole because he was convinced that it had something to do with the Curse.

When they get there, Archie goes straight for the sinkhole. Emma follows through, but the sinkhole caves in before she can get in there, and Archie and Henry are trapped inside. She and Regina team up in order to save the two, and it is Emma who later saves them when Pongo discovers a grate leading down to the miner's elevator.

After David Nolan is released from the hospital, she attends his welcome home party and tries to convince Henry that the reason he got lost the night they found him by the Toll Bridge was because he was an amnesiac. Henry doesn't believe her, though, and they leave after the party is over. Later, she is patrolling because Sheriff Graham had asked her to, and as she drives by Mayor Regina's house she sees someone climb out the window.

When she tackles the person, she discovers that it was the sheriff himself. Disgusted with his affair with Regina - and how Henry had been in the house, too - Emma leaves, making Graham ashamed. The next night, Graham chases after her when she leaves Granny's Diner and kisses her. He gets a flash of a wolf, Mary Margaret and a vault with antlers above it.

Soon, Graham begins acting strangely. He tells Emma that they need to look for his heart and as Emma tries to convince him that his dreams are just dreams, they both see the wolf with one red eye and one black eye - the same wolf that had kept her from leaving Storybrooke.

They chase after the wolf, and it leads them to the same vault with the antlers above it. They search the tomb and are caught by Regina. Graham cuts his ties with her and Regina blames Emma for it, even going so far as to hit her. Emma retaliates, but when she is dragged away by Graham, gives up and walks away.

Back at the station, Graham is cleaning her cuts and scratches and kisses her again. When he pulls away, he smiles and thanks her, saying that he remembers everything. Before she can ask him what he means, he suddenly collapses and dies from a fatal heart attack.

Two weeks later, Mr. Gold convinces Emma to become sheriff, as she was the deputy. Before she can put the badge on, Regina stops her and says that she has another candidate in mind: Sidney Glass, the author of many articles in the Daily Mirror'' that slandered her. Emma quickly challenges this and, with Mr. Gold's help, wins the election for sheriff.''

She quickly gets her first job as sheriff afterwards. Two orphans, Ava and Nicholas Zimmer, shoplifted from Mr. Clark's store and Regina wants them to be sent to the foster system in Boston. Emma fights this and manages to find their father, Michael Tillman. However, Tillman wants nothing to do with them.

As she is leaving Storybrooke, the Curse prevents the orphans from leaving by forcing Emma's car to break down. She calls Tillman and, when he sees the two children, agrees to take them back in, as their mother has died. That night, she is talking with Henry when a mysterious man drives by.

He asks her where he can find a place to stay, and she directs him to Granny's Bed and Breakfast. After he is gone, she turns to Henry and attempts to clarify the belief that strangers didn't come to Storybrooke. Henry confirms this with a "They don't."

The next day, Regina asks Emma to check the man out, which she does. She confronts him in Granny's Diner and asks him what he carries around in the wooden box strapped to the back of his motorcycle. The man promises to tell her if she'll let him buy her a drink sometime. When she consents, he opens the box to reveal a typewriter. As he gets up to leave, she questions him about that drink, to which he smiles and replies "Sometime."

The next day, Regina gets into an argument with Emma at the diner. Once the mayor is gone, Sidney Glass slides into the booth across from her to talk to her. It is revealed that after he lost the election, Regina fired him from the Daily Mirror, and he wanted revenge. Emma is reluctant to help him out, so he gives her a card with his number and leaves.

However, when Regina tears down Henry's castle for safety concerns, Emma becomes angry and calls Sidney. Together they discover the keys to every house in town, that Regina stole fifty thousand dollars from the treasury, and that she was building herself a house in the woods on the land that she bought from Mr. Gold.

When they attempt to expose her at the town meeting, Regina reveals that her "house" was actually a modern playground for Henry and for all the children of Storybrooke. Humiliated and ashamed, Emma leaves, but Regina catches up with her and warns her to stay away from Henry, or else she would get a restraining order. Emma and Sidney go to the diner, where they have a drink and vow to become allies against Regina's cruelty.

On Valentine's Day, Mary Margaret, Ruby and Ashley Boyd all invite her to attend their girls' night out party, but she declines, as she has her job to do. She discovers that Mr. Gold has been robbed by Moe French. Emma recovers all but one of the stolen items, something which makes Mr. Gold very angry.

He kidnaps Moe French and takes him to an abandoned cabin in the woods. Emma finds him beating the man half to death, and arrests him as he tries to leave. Regina comes with Henry while Mr. Gold is still in jail, and bribes Emma to leave the two alone for thirty minutes. Emma and Henry go to get some ice cream.

When Mary Margaret begins her affair with David Nolan, Emma warns her not to get involved with a married man. Unfortunately, Mary Margaret doesn't listen to her, and continues on with him. However, once the town gets wind of it, Mary Margaret realizes that her relationship with David is destructive and breaks up with him. Emma keeps Mary Margaret company that night, as she didn't want to be alone.

When Mary Margaret asks for volunteers for the Miner's Day festival, Emma tells her to let her know if she can help with anything and goes to the site of Kathryn Nolan's disappearance. Sidney comes in an attempt to get his job in the Daily Mirror back and offers to get Kathryn's phone records for her. However, the phone records are created by Regina in order to incriminate Mary Margaret and David Nolan.

Later that night, Regina comes to the station looking for news on her friend Kathryn. Emma refuses to reveal any information about the case, and Regina threatens to replace her if she was covering for someone. Emma goes to the Miner's Day festival and asks David to come with her, much to the shock of everyone.

She stays up all night interviewing David, but he insists that he doesn't know anything about his wife's disappearance. Emma grudgingly lets him leave the station and advises him to get a lawyer. As she is walking home, she meets up with Mary Margaret, and begins a conversation with her about David.

They turn the corner to see Ruby and Dr. Whale talking at the bus stop. He is insisting on helping her and Ruby is defending herself quietly. Emma interrupts and forces Dr. Whale to leave. Mary Margaret then invites Ruby to become a roommate until she can find her footing in Storybrooke again.

Ruby is searching for jobs with Henry Mills and answers a call from Miss Ginger. Emma walks in and sees her do this. Later, when Ruby says that she can't do anything around Storybrooke, Emma hires her as her assistant. Just then, Mary Margaret comes in and tells her that David was in the forest acting strange.

She and Ruby go to the forest, where Ruby quickly finds David, on the ground, delirious and bleeding. Emma takes him to the hospital, where it is revealed that he had experienced a blackout, similar to what he had experienced just after he'd woken up from his coma and gone to the Toll Bridge.

Just then, Regina barges in and demands that Emma arrest David. Emma resists and, when David is discharged, calls Ruby. She asks her to go to the Toll Bridge to look for something that they can use in the investigation before David goes into one of his trances and finds whatever he's looking for.

Ruby complies and finds a box with a human heart in it. Ruby is disgusted, but Emma reassures her and tells her that she was wonderful at this kind of job. As a result, the girl returns to Granny's Diner and gets her job back, as well as finding her happy ending: reuniting with her grandmother.

Meanwhile, Emma runs scans on the box and discovers that the fingerprints on it were Mary Margaret's. She goes to the animal shelter, where a distraught David is getting reassured by Mary Margaret. She reveals that she found the fingerprints on the box, and David insists that she arrests him. Instead she announces that the fingerprints were Mary Margaret's, to the couple's shock.

Appearances

 * Pilot
 * The Thing You Love Most
 * Snow Falls
 * The Price of Gold
 * That Still Small Voice
 * The Shepherd
 * The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
 * Desperate Souls
 * True North
 * 7:15am
 * Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
 * Skin Deep
 * What Happened to Frederick
 * Dreamy
 * Red-Handed
 * Heart of Darkness
 * Hat Trick

Trivia

 * "Emma" means "all-embracing, universal; whole, complete;" and Swan is possibly derived from the famous ballet Swan Lake or The Swan Princess. In FanFiction AU Stories, Emma is known as The Swan Queen.
 * She has appeared in every episode thus far.
 * Loves her hot chocolate with cinnamon, a trait that she shares with her mother and son.
 * She is the only one that can leave Storybrooke besides Henry, who left briefly in the episode Pilot to find her and had no choice but to come back to Regina, and August.
 * By her own admission, Emma has an extra-special ability to tell when someone is lying to her (whether this is a magically-endowed quality or simple intuition has yet to be revealed).
 * She is the only fairytale character who does not have an alternate idenity due to being a baby when she escaped the curse and not having a fairytale of her own.
 * It is hinted that she had a relationship with a married man, who may possibly be Henry's father. In the episode, 'The Still Small Voice', she warns Mary Margaret, who had been spending time with David Nolan, to not get involved with a married man.
 * The apples given to Emma by Regina are, in reality, Red Delicious (Larger, Fully Red, and More Oblong) instead of the Honey Crisps (Smaller, Mostly yellow with some red, and Rounder) as stated in the show. In addition Honey Crisp Apples are a cross pollination of two other apples discovered in 1977 it is highly unlikely that these would have been in Maine as long as alluded to (28 years) since this apple was still was under patent by University of Minnesota at the time.
 * Emma is similar to her own mother Snow White, seeing as both have given up their own child. Snow gave up Emma at birth and Emma gave Henry up for adoption. Both hoping their child would have "Their Best Chance" and boldness they have show in front of Regina aka The Evil Queen. Both have become outlaws, too- Snow became a thief while Emma had trouble with the law later on becoming a BailBonds Person, and in Desperate Souls became the town Sheriff after Graham's death.
 * Interesting enough they both had run ins with the Huntsman- Snow in Fairytale Land after he spared her life and Emma in Storybrooke into his Alternate Sheriff Graham who had feelings for her until his death.
 * Though she may not approve of Mr.Gold's methods for getting his deals done, she does approve of the resaults as she is willing to hire him to clear Mary Margaret's name in the Kathryn Nolan murder case. (Heart of Darkness)
 * Jennifer Morrison has said this on playing Emma Swan "Emma Swan is a deeply damaged woman, and a deeply conflicted woman. She is a survivor, and used to being a loner, and therefore a sucker for the underdog. Against her better judgement, she will compromise herself to fight for what is right and to help those in need. She is strong and aggressive, but her brokenness and her emotions are not buried far beneath her tough exterior. He first reaction to most things is anger, but she has spent her life trying to manage her temper. She is both rash and calculated, and is forced to deal with her instincts to protect her child, a child she believes she is not capable of mothering. In the simplest form, Emma is a list of contrasting qualities: She is hard and soft; she is intense and easy going; she is strong and vulnerable; she is safe and dangerous; she is logical and impulsive. It is exciting to play a character that is so deeply conflicted and fiercely compelled to fight for what she believes is right."

Emma Swan