And the plot bunnies have struck again.
It's a basic premise: what if Emma had a twin? How much would change? What would remain the same? I loved making this fic's main OC, one who I can't wait to see grow along the way.
The face-claim for my OC is Amy Seimetz. I was originally going to use Zoey Deschanel, but then I saw a trailer for Pet Semetery (2019). I haven't looked back since.
This fic is rated M. It includes strong language, violence, and possible sex scenes. If and when a future chapter has triggers, I'll include them in the author's note.
Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time.
"With a mighty toss, Prince Charming threw his sword at the Evil Queen. Before its blade could pierce her flesh, she disappeared in a puff of purple smoke; her eyes aflame with raging hatred. As the weapon clattered to the floor, he grabbed hold of Snow White - worried of what the cruel woman had in mind.
He didn't know what would happen next, but one thing was for certain: the Evil Queen would have her revenge, and no one would be spared from whatever she had up her sleeve."
Henry Mills had reached the end of the chapter, eyes examining the drawing of a worried Prince Charming and Snow White. The illustrated versions of the couple had seemingly been thrown for a loop, but the boy had faith that they would stop their greatest enemy. After all, the heroes were the good guys. They never lost because they always fought for a happy ending, something they had yet to achieve.
He peered out the window of the bus he'd taken into Boston, the city's lights glowing beneath a cover of light rain. It looked magical, as if wondrous things would soon come to pass.
Closing the giant book of fairy tales, Henry readied himself for the upcoming stop. At the sound of paper softly thumping against paper, a woman across the aisle glanced his way.
"That a good book?" she asked, curious.
Henry grinned, holding the giant story against his chest so she could get a better look at its cover. "This? It's more than just a book."
The way he answered her, as if it held many secrets between its binding, made the woman look at him with amusement. She thought he was playing make-believe, that he'd immersed himself in a fantastical world that brought him joy.
"Oh?" she said around a smile, one that humored more than encouraged him.
He didn't mind.
This wasn't the world that he or the town of Storybrooke belonged in. No. This was a land without magic, a place where Disney movies existed. He needed to make sure that the people he grew up with realized this, too. Right now, they were asleep. They didn't know that they were fictional legends, like Jiminy Cricket or Red Ridding Hood. Luckily for them, he knew who could help them.
Starting with Dr. Anderson.
"Boston South Station," announced the deep voice of the bus' PA. "Thank you for riding Greyhound."
"Well, I hope that it lives up to its name," remarked the woman, jutting her chin towards the book. "Otherwise, Once Upon a Time would have been a waste."
"It will," Henry confidently said. "But it might take some time before it does."
"All the good ones tend to do that," the woman chuckled. "That's what makes the 'and they all lived happily ever after's feel real."
The bus came to a complete stop, allowing the passengers to get up from their seats.
"Nice talking to you."
"You, too," Henry said before following the slew of passengers out into the cool autumn air.
Hold on just a little longer, Grandma and Grandpa. I'll help them break the curse, and then we can be a family.
If only Henry knew how long that road would be.
Boston was much louder than Storybrook, but Henry couldn't dwell on this. He had a mission to see through, one that would change the lives of countless people - including his own.
With that in mind, he marched on, determined and anxious to put the next part of his plan into action.
After a mile-long walk, Henry managed to find a cab. He knocked on the passenger window, which gained the driver's attention. Henry didn't even wait for him to fully roll down the window so they could speak to each other.
"Hi. Do you take credit cards?"
Please drive me. Please, please, please.
Though he did eye Henry with a bit of suspicion, the cabbie shrugged his shoulders and motioned towards the backseats.
"Where to, chief?" he asked once Henry had slipped himself towards the middle of the seat.
After handing the cabbie the credit card he'd 'borrowed' from his teacher, he gave his next destination. "1556 Weaver Street, please."
"You got it."
They pulled out into traffic.
"Is that home for you?" asked the cabbie, glancing at Henry through the rearview mirror.
"Something like that."
"Family, then?"
"Yep."
Realization dawned in the cabbie's eyes. "Weaver Street. . . that's Dr. Anderson's office. She helped me when I went through my divorce last year."
"She did?"
He nodded his head. "She's great. Not very well-known, considering how small her practice is. It felt like she was looking at my soul, which I suppose was the point. Didn't know she had family, though."
"She does."
"And who is she to you?"
Even though he'd only known of Dr. Anderson's existence for less than a day, Henry proudly told him, "She's my aunt."
For the first time in months, Clara allowed herself to stare at the text that annoyingly blared up at her.
"we need to talk."
It seemed like ages ago that her girlfriend had sent this to her. The worry Clara had felt hit the pit of her stomach the moment she first read it. She never liked it when Ellie made things cryptic. She hated how it was implied that she should always know what's wrong, that it wasn't as difficult as she made it out to be. It just made everything feel worse than it should have.
She'd thought that, perhaps, it wasn't as serious as she allowed her mind to believe. That all Ellie really wanted to tell her was that they needed to figure out what to do for date night.
It turned out that Ellie wasn't pleased with their relationship. She wanted more, wanted to move in together once they hit their five month mark. That might have been the right amount of time for most people, but Rebecca wasn't one of them. No. Ellie was the one who fell more into that group.
"You're going too slow for me. I need you to pick up the pace."
Clara tried not to snip, but she couldn't hold back, "If I move any faster, I'll end up breaking my back."
That had been a poor choice of words.
Which of course led to a heated argument.
Then Clara reluctantly told Ellie she could move in to her apartment by the end of the week. If it meant that her girlfriend didn't hold this over her head, she'd keep her mouth shut.
"No," Ellie had told her, eyes glossed over and lips brought down in a frown.
"What?"
"I don't want to. Not anymore."
"We can figure things out," Clara had promised. "We. . . we can't end things over this."
"It's not just that, though. You seem. . . too focused on your past."
"What's that suppose to mean?"
"You're obsessed with wanting to find your family."
That was a sensitive spot. She could take being called a slow-poke, but she wouldn't let anyone tell her that. Not Ellie, not Buddha, not even someone as gorgeous as Diego Luna.
So the argument resumed.
An hour later, they broke up because Ellie told Rebecca that she needed to "grow the fuck up" and move on with her life.
Yeah. Clara totally was the asshole while Ellie was the innocent lamb.
Bull shit.
Fine. She didn't need someone to treat her like she was a stupid, naïve child. . . . And then the guilt and worry set in. Guilt for how things ended, and worry that perhaps Ellie had been right.
It wasn't like they had been dating for a huge amount of time, but it still stung that things didn't work out for them. If they were still together, they would have been dating for nine months. Clara really did like her. She liked her angled brown hair and her head-to-toe freckles. She liked how she carefully analyzed everything that was important to her. She liked that she faithfully watered her plants. She even liked how she always chose John Lennon to sing softly from her record player. Though the thought of fast-paced relationships freaked her out, Clara did enjoy spending time with Ellie. Maybe they would have been better friends than girlfriends. But even that wasn't an option, seeing as Ellie didn't want to see her ever again.
Which was. . . fine.
Maybe.
Clara sighed, wondering for the thousandth time why she didn't suck it up and delete her ex's number. It was the healthy thing to do, the smarter thing. She was over her, enough so to not sit in her shower and cry for hours on end as she listened to Celine Dion. But doing that would mean that she would be erasing what little was left after the oh so wonderful end they shared.
She was acting like a love-struck teenager who couldn't get over the fact that her crush didn't like her back.
Her thumb hovered over the delete button, waiting to press what would push her to move on with her life. And she craved it. God, did she.
And yet. . . .
She sighed again, frustrated that she was even considering that Ellie had been right in a way. That she was too dumb to give up looking for answers she'd never find.
"Damnit." She excited her messages and dropped the cell on her desk before brushing her hands through her hair. "Damnitdamnitdamnit."
A knock sounded at her office door, startling her from her musings.
"Clara, are you okay?" asked Sharron, her secretary. The middle-aged woman eyed her with concern.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks for asking, Sharron."
She didn't look convinced, if her raised eyebrow and look of 'uh-huh' were anything to go by.
"If you don't need anything else done for the night, I'm heading out."
Wanting nothing more than to eat the Chinese takeout in her fridge, Clara shook her head. Wisps of her black hair slowly swished back-and-forth, softly hitting the sides of her head. "No, we're set. Thanks, Sharron."
With a nod of her head, Sharron readied herself to leave when a look of shock crossed her face.
"Oh my goodness!" Before Clara could say anything, Sharron dashed back out to the lobby. The older woman soon returned to Clara's desk. "I almost forgot to give you this!"
In her hands was a pink envelope, no doubt a card - seeing as her name was written in near-perfect cursive in the center of it.
"You didn't have to get me anything."
"Nonsense! It's your birthday. Of course I had to."
Clara did her best to fight the grimace that demanded to be displayed.
Sharron looked hurt, 'you just ran over my puppy' kind of hurt.
"Sorry. It's not you. . . . It's. . . everything else. The age, the fact that I -"
"Don't celebrate birthdays?"
Sharron was new, having replaced her last secretary. Thankfully, she found someone who was more organized and welcoming than her predecessor. In fact, this was the first time she was around for Clara's birthday. She'd honestly hoped that she wouldn't remember. Clara would rather curl up on the couch with her pets and wait for the existential crisis that was bound to hit. The last thing she wanted was a reminder that another year had come and gone without the family she wished she had.
"Uh, yes."
"I'm sorry, Clara. I wouldn't have done anything if I had known."
She shrugged her shoulders, casually. "It's alright. Like you said, you didn't know." Not wanting to be asked the dreaded "why not?," Clara opened the envelope. Inside, starting up at her, was a smiling basset hound. It wore a party hat, frizzy rainbow wig, and held a purple kazoo between its droopy lips. That earned a chuckle, which soon died off when she noticed a fifty dollar bill wedged inside of the card. "I can't. . . I can't accept this!"
Rude. Incredibly rude. She wished she could take it back, but the fifty bucks was enough to make her feel horrible for even holding it.
A soft, understanding smile graced Sharron's features. "I wouldn't have given it to you if I needed it." The older woman shifted her weight while her hand rubbed her forearm. "Would you like some company for tonight? We could go out for a drink or dinner."
Clara felt both touched and guilty over Sharron's offer. She didn't want her to give up her evening for the sake of entertaining a pathetic woman on her birthday. Instead, she sent her an appreciative smile. "Thank you, but I, uh, have plans."
Sharron's shoulders relaxed at this. "If you're sure."
"I am." Shifting through a random pile of papers, she added, "See you tomorrow."
With a final nod, Sharron left the practice, the sound of the front door jingling in her wake. Clara slumped in her chair the moment she knew she was alone, a long sigh escaping her. She really would have rather spent the rest of her night with someone. Truly, she did. She hadn't done so since. . . .
Clara shook her head.
Don't think about it. It's not worth it.
Besides, she had the best company waiting for her at home.
The thought of Shadow and Sally greeting her the moment she opened her door made the woman smile. She might not have any human friends outside of Sharron, but at least she had her furry companions. It made the days where she felt loneliest slightly more bearable.
As she readied herself to leave for the evening, the sound of bells rang. Thinking it was her secretary, Clara called out: "Everything okay, Sharron?"
Instead of her friend, a boy no older than eleven stood in the doorway of her office. His brown hair was shaggy while his arms hugged what looked like a massive book. There was a knowing look sparkling in his dark eyes, as if he already knew the answer to a question he wished to ask.
"I'm sorry, sweetie, but we're closed."
"Are you Dr. Anderson?" asked the boy.
"I am. And who might you be?"
"Henry."
"Are you here to make an appointment?"
"No."
Clara peered around him, scanning what she could see of the lobby. "Are you. . . are you here with your parents?"
"I'm here alone," Henry replied as if this wasn't as big of a deal as it was.
Which it totally was.
"How old are you, Henry?"
"Ten."
What the hell is he doing here, then?
Rather than let him know that she wasn't going to let this slide, she fell into the role she played for a living.
"Do they know that you're here?"
"No."
Oh.
Clara couldn't believe that it took her this long to figure out that he was most-likely lost. Or worse, a runaway.
Summoning her the sternest version of her work persona, Clara said, "Well, then, this isn't good at all, is it?"
She use to think it was weird how put together she sounded whenever she acted like a responsible adult. She'd felt fake at first. That is, until she realized the she needed to be there for her patients and leave all her crud at the door. So, of course, she was going to sound like someone who was older than her late twenties.
Clara reached for her work phone.
"What are you doing?" he asked, eyes slightly bigger than they were a minute ago.
She paused, having yet to press the first number. "I'm calling the police so they can take you home."
A smaller hand yanked the phone from her hold, drawing a gasp of protest from her. "What are you -"
"Don't call the police. Please," Henry begged, the book he'd held now lying on the carpeted floor. It looked sad, like it was disappointed in her actions.
The hell. . . .
"And why shouldn't I?" she asked, trying to take back her phone from the kid.
"Because my mom is your sister."
That got her attention. She stared at Henry, mouth agape, eyes wide in disbelief. Her ears were ringing, loud and fuzzy and crisp all at once. There was no way he could know. Unless he was trying to stall her from doing what needed to be done. But the way he had said it, with honesty and genuine sincerity, made her think otherwise.
"What did you say?"
Knowing he had her, Henry repeated: "My mom. She's your sister."
Not a long one, but it's a nice little introduction to Clara. The next one will contain most of what remains of the first chapter. I plan on writing from the POV of some of the canon characters, as well as some Disney/fairy tale characters who never made an appearance.
I'll post the next chapter as soon as I have it edited.
Until next time, see you later :)