Hat's off to you, Swan

Emma/ Jefferson

Starts in season 1, episode 17.

Another 'What if' story...

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After making sure that Regina saw Mary-Margaret in her cell and that nobody was in trouble, Emma went to the school to warn Henry that everything had been solved and when she saw Paige, the little girl Jefferson had claimed had been his daughter Grace back in the Enchanted Forest, something similar to an alarm bell rang in her mind, demanding that she focused her attention on it and refusing to let her think about anything else.

She asked Henry to see the book and quickly found the story that Jefferson claimed was his.

The little girl from the drawing, Grace, could be Paige.

Jefferson could be the Mad-hatter.

The scar around his neck could be from having had his head cut off in Wonderland by the Queen of Heart.

The curse could be real.

Could the curse be real? really? Could she be this saviors they were all hoping for?

"Can I keep this for a while?" Emma asked Henry as the warning bell of the school rang to tell him to head in class.

"Absolutely. Knock yourself out." Henry smiled and nodded before he ran off, happy to be making progress.

Emma stayed a while sitting on her bench, reading the book until she decided to close it and go back to the place she had tried to run from the entire night. It was now right before lunch and she couldn't get herself to eat anything before she got the answers she wanted.

Parking in front of the large house, she noticed that the window that had been opened upstairs earlier was now closed and that there was a light shining through the living room window. So he had, somehow, survived the fall and gone back inside, it was good to know.

Nervously, she raised her hand and knocked on the door three times before she rang on the doorbell twice and knocked twice more.

"Knocking or ringing the doorbell alone is often enough, you know." Jefferson told her as he opened the door.

"Force of habit... in case the doorbell doesn't work or people didn't ear me the first time around. " She shrugged her shoulders.

"Didn't expect to see you here again so soon. Came to arrest me, Sheriff?" He sounded resigned, hopeless and it broke her heart a little to know that she was the cause of it.

"No. I came to talk. I'm not sure if I'm ready to believe in the curse but I'm willing to listen." She replied.

"Then please, be my guest and come on in." He said with a surprised smile, moving to the side and letting her inside his big house.

Jefferson led Emma to the living room and offered her a seat on the couch. He sat in the opposite armchair, placing the coffee table safely between them to make things easier on the both of them.

"Can I offer you some tea?"

"No thanks, I've had enough earlier. No offence." She shook her head.

"None taken. I guess I could have gone about things differently… I just got desperate, saw an opportunity and took it." He explained shortly.

"Yeah… I think I get it." She nodded as she placed Henry's book on the coffee table between them.

"You want something to eat? I could make us a couple of sandwiches or something..." he offered, trying to be a good host.

"I can't eat anything right now but thanks." she shook her head.

"So...What's with the book?" He asked her.

"This morning I went to see Henry at school to tell him that Mary-Margaret was safely back in her cell and Paige got my attention when she greeted him. I asked to see his book and found your story. The little girl from the drawing could be Paige and I guess you could be the Mad-Hatter… I… I guess I… I don't know… Maybe I'm ready to try and believe, especially if breaking this stupid curse is the way to prove that my friend is innocent." Emma explained.

"You mean your mother? And of course she's innocent. One way or another, Regina is behind all of this. She's probably not working alone either." He assured Emma as he turned the pages of the book until he fell face to face with his own story.

"You've been watching the town from here. Do you know who's working with her? What happened to Katherine? How to solve this?" Emma asked him.

"All I can tell you is that Sydney Glass is still working for Regina, no matter what he told you. He can't be trusted. Back in our world, he enchanted himself into a magic mirror so he could be by Regina's side forever and watch over her, help her. He's madly in love with her, no matter what realm we're in and that's causing him to be blind and to let her use him any way she wants." Jefferson explained to Emma.

"He's been helping me solving this case…looking for clues..." She protested.

"If I were you I'd double check every piece of information he gave you. He is capable of faking a lot of things. He has the contacts and Regina has the influence. Together, they can do a lot of damages."

"I… I will." She nodded.

"I wish I could help you more, especially if it helps you believe but I've been especially busy watching over Grace… making sure that she was alright and that Regina didn't hurt her…" He apologized.

"I understand, don't worry… I… If this curse is real… Mary-Margaret is my mother and I wasn't abandoned because they didn't want me but because they didn't have a choice and they wanted to give me my best chance… like I did with Henry. Without this curse, I would have grown up with my parents… I would have known what it's like to be loved and to have a family… I wouldn't have had to give up Henry…" Emma whispered.

It didn't cross her mind that if she hadn't been abandoned, she wouldn't have met Neal and would have never had Henry either.

"Yours is not the only happy ending that was taken. Regina took a lot from everyone around here." Jefferson nodded.

"How do you think I can break this curse?" She asked him.

"I think the first step is to believe, strongly. Then probably something like a leap of faith or something… You'd have to ask the Dark One." He told her.

"Who's that? I mean, I know who he is in the book, Henry told me. But here, in town, who is he?" Emma asked him.

"All powerful man, collect things that belong to others… Isn't it obvious? M. Gold is the Dark One."

"I guess it makes sense, yes…" Emma nodded.

"Are you willing to try and make a hat that works now, then?" He asked her.

"According to the book, the curse took everyone here because it's a land without magic." Emma told him, turning the pages to show him the passages where she had read the information.

"But you're the savior, the product of True Love. That makes you magical. True Love is the most powerful magic of all, trust me. I've seen it at work several times. You have magic and you're the only one who can use it here." He assured her.

"I'm not even sure I believe still…. But fine, let's try." She finally agreed.

"Really?" he was surprised.

"Yeah, why not. Not now though, I have to go and try to work on freeing Mary-Margaret before it gets too out of hand, check over everything I've found so far with Sydney and try to find out what he's trying to hide from me." She said as she stood up, taking Henry's book in her hands as she did so.

"Do you… Do you need help?" He asked her.

"You want to help? Why?" She asked him, surprised.

"Well, I've been locked up all alone in this house for over 28 years and before that I was locked in a room in Wonderland, forced to make hats for the Queen of Hearts in hopes that eventually, one will work as a portal. I'll welcome any company who isn't a wicked or evil queen - witch trying to use me to hurt other people." She shrugged his shoulders.

"Can I trust you?" She asked him, knowing that she'd be able to detect his lie.

"Yes, You can trust me Emma." He nodded.

"Fine, come with me then." She nodded and he joined her in her car and to the station.

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For the next few days, Emma and Jefferson spent a lot of time together, working on the case and on Emma's beliefs.

Henry immediately took a strong liking to the Mad-Hatter and to thank him for trying to make Emma believe, and succeeding, he invited Paige to join them for ice cream a couple of time after school, using the excuse of working on a project together and of being supervised by Emma and Jefferson while they worked.

Of course they had to do this while hiding from Regina and Paige couldn't know that Jefferson was really her father, she simply thought that she was hanging out with Henry but Jefferson was happy to be able to spend time with her, even if it wasn't as real as he wished it to be.

In only a few days, they managed to arrest Sydney for faking clues and prove that Mary-Margaret wasn't guilty. They wouldn't seem to find evidence that Regina was behind it all for now but they were confident that they would find a way to do it eventually. They had even found Katherine locked in the basement of an isolated house on the town's line, in the middle of the woods, that apparently belonged to no-one. She had been drugged but was alive, which was a very good thing for everyone.

You couldn't arrest someone for murdering a person who was still alive. Mary-Margaret was free and Emma was now concentrating on bringing Regina down, one way or another.

At first, it was a 5 000 words long one shot. Then I added a couple of words and before I knew it, it was 11 000 words long so I decided to turn it onto a multi-chapter fic. I hope you'll like it.

I know that this theme had been explored before but not by me. I haven't even read many fiction in that category before.

Don't forget to tell me what you honestly think in a review.

Check out my other stories!

Lorelei Candice Black.