Everything fell, but we are still here (And we are suffering.)
[ATHC series] : Wish Realm. Alexandra tries to find out what's wrong with Pinocchio, while dealing with her own demons. He finally tells her. Pinocchio & Alexandra friendship. Past Alexandra & Emma friendship and Pinocchio & Emma friendship. Past Swanfire. Canonical Character Death. Angst. Alexandra centric.
Alexandra always was a happy princess.
Raised up by two wonderful parents, who loved each other and loved her too, raising her as a princess, but without confining into her princess' role, just as Snow and David were doing this with Emma.
She was four years old when she met princess Emma, who was just a little younger than her, along with Pinocchio, who was twelve years old.
They immediately became friends.
§§§§
Emma is seventeen years old, they are at a ball, her and Alexandra are dancing together, just as their respective mothers did once, and the princess is looking at a man of their age named Neal.
And then, Alexandra smiles at her, almost laughing.
"You love him, she affirms, with a so great smile on her lips that it almost hurts her."
Emma, blushing, denies immediately this, even if it is true, and Alexandra then bursts into laughter.
(Later, far later, she will regret this time of innocence, where she still thought that they were the kind of people who could get a happy ending, or just a happy life.
How naive she was.)
There will be a wedding, she bets with Pinocchio, and I will be the maid of honor.
He chuckles, and tells her that they will see.
(She is right.)
§§§§
Alexandra is twenty-two years old and her heart is almost going to explode with happiness.
Emma had screamed with pain for hours, and now, her face is radiant with joy, and she holds her son in her arms.
She is a mother, and Alexandra realizes that she never was so happy for her before this moment.
But this, it's until Emma puts the little child, Henry, inherarms, and Alexandra looks at him, and she smiles at him.
She will always protect this child, she swears to herself.
(She fails, miserably.
After the disaster, after Emma's disappearance, in her mind, she asks Emma to forgive her.
She was not strong enough to stop her son from falling.
She failed him, she failed her, she failed all of them.
It's her fault.)
And then, Emma asks her : do you want to be his god-mother ?
Alexandra cries with joy, and of course, as Pinocchio, she answers yes.
§§§§
Alexandra is thirty-two years old and she tries with difficulty to hide her tears.
Today, Neal Cassidy is dead during the war against the ogres, which came back for a little time.
But it was enough for him to find death.
She sees Emma and Henry, comforted by Snow and David, who try to hide their sadness too.
Alexandra looks at Pinocchio, who is not in a better state than she is, and anger takes her, anger against the injustice which hits them on this terrible day.
She thinks nothing worst can happen to them.
(She is wrong, this time.)
§§§§
The queen and the king are dead, Emma is gone, prince Henry lost everything is just one day, and there is nothing Alexandra can do to change this, to fix it, there is nothing she can do.
Weeks pass, the royals are buried, and Emma, their princess, their dear princess, is considered as being dead or disappeared, no one knows, and one day, two new tombs appear.
(Alexandra knows that Henry will never stop looking for his mother.
He is as obstinate as she is.
She misses her friend, a lot, and she has no idea of how she can comfort her godson, while her own heart is broken by the pain.)
Alexandra tries not to cry, she is an adult now, and a princess, the future heir of her kingdom (oh, thanks god, her parents are still here, alive), and she has to stay strong for Henry.
Henry, who is the prince, but who is a child, and who just lost three people of his family in one day, and he cries in front of everyone the day his grand-parents are buried.
Alexandra looks at him, and she curses the Evil Queen for what she did to this child.
Not just because she took everything from him, but because she put a terrible burden on his shoulders.
She asks herself if a child, even as strong as he is, will ever be able to support the charge he has to assume.
(No. Of course no.
No one could.)
She clenches her fists, bites her lips, tries to contain her pain, and feels a terrible anger burn through her veins, an anger which is surely not as strong and violent as Henry's anger must be now.
(When she comes back home, she cries during the entire night.)
§§§§
There is something wrong with Pinocchio.
She has no idea of what it is, but she can tell it, her friend is not well, not anymore, not since she told him what happened to Snow and David.
She didn't know if it was because of Emma's disappearance, the queen's and king's, or the fact that Henry couldn't support this situation anymore, or if it was because of his anger against the queen, an anger they all shared.
She had no idea that, in reality, he was angry against himself.
When she find shim with blood on his arm, she realized they had to talk.
§§§§
"We are not real, he tells her, and just like he predicted it, she doesn't believe him. We exist because of the wish of a princess, who didn't want to be the Savior anymore.
She tries to smile, because it doesn't mean anything, but her smile is a lie, because she is freaking afraid.
- But, Pinocchio… it's absurd. What do you mean, by we are not real ?
- She told me this. Emma. I saw her, you know, after… after what the queen did. The queen didn't abduct her, Emma came with her willingly, because, apparently, this world was not her world. She asked me to build her a magical wardrobe.
- Just like your father did for her parents…
- Yes. They left. I saw her leave the kingdom in this wardrobe.
- So, you know where she is now ?
For the first time since months, Alexandra truly had hope that her friend was not definitely gone, that they could get her back, that everything was not destroyed and that Henry was not lost forever.
A hope that her friend immediately destroyed.
- Yes.
- Can we get to her ?"
Pinocchio had a sad smile, understanding that his friend didn't understand how things worked, that she still didn't accept that Emma was now gone, and that she was not going to come back.
"No. well, we can, the wardrobe is still there, but… she won't come with us. And, by the way, we couldn't come back to this world."
So what ? Alexandra thought. Can any world be really worst than this one ?
"She has her family in this world.
Her real family was implicit in his sentence, but Alexandra felt it despite it.
- We are her family too ! She protested. We exist, we are real ! Just because we were created by magic doesn't mean that we are not here, that we don't matter ! Look at you, Blue and your father created you thanks to magic !"
We matter, she wanted to scream. Emma, you didn't have the right to abandon us, you didn't have the right to abandon your son !
"She doesn't know it. She doesn't know we still exist. Her and the queen, thy told me everything would be gone after their departure. They were wrong, apparently."
And Alexandra realized that, in reality, there was no one against who she could be angry, as the culprits were gone forever.
Her anger, her hatred, her revolt against the injustice that had been done to Henry, all of this, it was useless.
She was angry against people who wouldn't even understand her anger, as they didn't even know that she was here.
She tried not to scream.
She looked at Pinocchio, and realized that he was suffering just as her.
For a second, she thought about it, thinking that maybe it could be true, before turning her head.
No, no.
Just, no.
There was what was real, and what was not.
Them, they were real.
If it was not the case, why on hell would have she suffered that much ?
They existed.
And it was not a fallen queen and a disappeared princess who would made her believe her the contrary.