Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anybody except for what or whom I think up.
Also: this one is for LokisSpy, whose enthusiasm inspires me and whose friendship warms my heart :)
It was dusk in Storybrooke and while most people were closing down their shops for the day and heading to the local diner for a meal, a woman and her little girl, were out in the forest on a walk.
"Jolie, my sweet, what is this?"
The mother was crouching down and holding up a small daisy for her daughter's inspection. Jolie, who was all of two years old and fascinated by the world around her, stopped to study the flower, all but probing it with her big blue eyes for a few moments before she answered.
"Flower?" she tried, speaking a clipped French accent like her mother's. "A dizzy?"
"Close enough." Her mother tucked the daisy behind her ear. "You look so pretty with that flower."
Jolie giggled and blew her mother a kiss. "Merci, maman."
"Do you want to keep walking?"
Fighting back a yawn, the little one nodded and reached for her mother's hand when it was offered. They continued on their stroll for a few more minutes, just enjoying each other and the evening gloom, for that was always their favorite time.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.
"You hear that, Jolie?"
The little girl mimicked a howling wolf.
"That's right—Ruby is out tonight, running through the woods, no doubt."
"Oooo…"
"Even in this world, if you show kindness and love the animals, they will protect you."
Jolie understood what she was being told, but she was too tired to answer and as a result, when she took a step towards her mother, she accidentally tripped over a loose rock in her way and fell flat on her face, proceeding to slide a few inches. Frightened and covered in mud, Jolie sat up and burst into tears.
Her mother pulled her to her feet and started to comfort her but suddenly froze, hearing something or someone a little further down the path. She didn't even have to see who it was to recognize that all too familiar swagger.
"No, no, no…"
Jolie fed off the nervousness. "Maman, why sad eyes?"
The footsteps grew closer and the fear was increased. She hadn't seen this man in thirty years, but that didn't stop her from grazing a hand over her lower back where some old scars lay hidden by her clothes.
Doing everything she could to not upset her daughter further, the woman gave the toddler a nudge.
"Go hide!"
Jolie stomped her foot and crossed her arms in defiance.
"No!"
"It'll just like playing hide-and-go-seek!"
"NO!"
Before further attempts of persuasion were made, Jolie's mother turned to face the bigger problem at hand: her husband, the man that she had purposefully escaped from all those years ago in Avonlea, the man that she had gone to great lengths to avoid in Storybrooke.
In the blink of an eye, they were face to face and in the evening light, he looked intimidating.
"Maurice…"
It was indeed Maurice French, although she remembered him more as King Maurice, her husband, ruler of Avonlea, father of their daughters… and also as the man who sometimes beat because she was never able to give him a son to rule the throne.
Maurice was her worst nightmare.
And he had somehow found her.
"There you are, love. You have some explaining to do."
"I shouldn't have to explain myself to you at all!"
"Oh, really? Well, where were you during the curse years or even when it broke? Why did it take for me having to see you pass by me in the market this morning to find out that you're even still alive? We're still married, you know, despite all the running and hiding you've been up to!"
He glimpsed at Jolie, who was beginning to soil her pants in reaction to the sudden hostility.
"And whose child is that?" snarled Maurice to his wife. "Who did you sl—"
SLAP!
The woman struck Maurice clean across the cheek.
"She is yours, believe it or not because I was pregnant when I left! My magic combined with that curse put things on hold for a bit until the Savior arrived! I was fully aware that the Savior's return was 'waking' Regina up, and that sort of 'rebooted' my magic, allowing me to go through a normal pregnancy!"
"I don't believe you."
"I speak nothing but the truth."
"Is that so? Then answer this—does Belle know that you're back? Have you seen her?"
"No and no, but—JOLIE, STOP! COME BACK!"
In a fit of two-year-old rage, the little girl had run forward towards the big scary man, fists waving. She never got hold of her target because a large cloud of pink smoke ensconced her little body, and when it cleared, her parents were nowhere in sight, but she was, however, nose-to-nose with a big wolf.
Most small children would turn and run in fright at the sight of such a fierce animal, but not Jolie. She was too tired and confused to be afraid. Reaching out with one of her little hands, she let the creature sniff her and she giggled when it licked her fingers happily.
"Wooby?"
For the second time in a night, Jolie mimicked a howling wolf and flattered by the attempt, Ruby licked Jolie's fingers again. Jolie pat Ruby's back absently.
"Me sad…"
Taking pity on the child and not caring that she was filthy, Ruby lowered herself close enough to the ground so that Jolie could climb onto her back. When Ruby was positive that Jolie was holding on tightly, she set off towards town at a slow pace.
There was only one person that Ruby could think to bring the child to.
Emma Swan wasn't having a very good day.
Following the return from Neverland, it was business as usual in Storybrooke and things were going nicely. At the end of the day, she'd go home and fall on her bed—sometimes fully clothed—and be dead to the world the second her head hit her pillow. Then there were days when she'd just crash with Neal in his room at the bed and breakfast, happy to feel his arms around her and a warm body next hers.
Despite that, she'd been a little out of it as of late.
The first warning was that Emma has begun craving tacos and sometimes taco salad for almost every meal. She ignored that.
The second sign was that both Mulan and Aurora—who had travelled back with them after the quest for reasons they weren't sharing—were both equally taken aback by their friend's abrupt change in her nature from her usual self to extremely cheerful.
Emma chose to ignore their wariness, but then the god-awful nausea and vomiting began and there was no denying it any longer, especially since she'd gone through it before.
She was pregnant with Neal's child.
Things went south when she told him and she spent the rest of the day in bed, only getting up to eat or use the bathroom.
Currently, she was thankful that nobody was demanding her attention, and that her parents had taken Henry out to Granny's diner to celebrate his good grades at school. Imagine her confusion when she heard a noise at the front door but didn't see anyone when she opened it.
"Hello?"
A nudge at her knees caused her to look down and gasp. Ruby was there, as a wolf… with an extremely weary and filthy toddler at her side? What?
"Ruby, I don't even want to know how you got all the way in the building like that."
Emma changed her tone to a kind and gentle one as she crouched down in front of the wolf's companion.
"Hey, kid—what's your name?"
"J-Jolie."
Her words came out in a yawn and she tipped slightly to the side, but Ruby braced herself and acted as a wall of support for the little one.
Blocking the awful stench rolling off Jolie, Emma continued speaking to her. "I'm Emma, one of Ruby's friends. Can you say Emma?"
"E-Em… Emma?"
"Very good! Where's your mom?"
"Sleepin'…"
Emma raised her eyebrows. "Your dad, too?"
Jolie just wrinkled her nose. "Me stinky."
"That's for sure. Let's go get you cleaned up."
"Kay…"
Emma held Jolie out at arm's length, so as not to get any part of herself dirty and when they headed towards the stairs, Jolie let out a sudden squawk of alarm that almost made Emma drop her.
"What was that for?" Emma complained.
"Wooby!" she turned towards the wolf, standing a few feet away, watching hopefully. "Wooby, Wooby! Awooo!"
"Okay, Ruby can come, too."
The wolf made a happy noise and came bounding over, tail wagging happily. Her enthusiasm made Emma tack something on as an afterthought.
"Just please don't shed or break something; David and Mary Margaret won't like that."
Ruby let out a soft woof akin to a laugh, which Emma took for an "I promise to behave," and followed Emma and Jolie up the stairs.
This was going to be fun.
Meanwhile, back in the woods, a witch and a pirate were also taking a night walk in the woods. Most people who knew these two together would think that they were up to no good, but not tonight.
No, tonight, they were just having a walk because that's what friends do. Yes, they may have spent way too long trying to kill each other, but the quest to Neverland and then all that time on the Jolly Roger had softened things up.
Their conversation veered way off course when they came upon a roadblock.
"Would you look at that." Said the witch to the pirate, clicking her tongue in disproval. "It looks like Maurice passed out, drunk again."
The pirate also adopted a look of disproval. "Is this an act he makes habit of?"
"Every once in awhile; waking him up will be most unpleasant."
"Shall I help?"
"Better you than me."
As the pirate advanced on the passed out florist, he became distracted by the second person, just four feet away, unconscious. His heart dropped in genuine fear at the sight of this injured woman. As he ran to her and sat on the ground, cradling her in the crook of his arm and caressing her cheek with his hand, his only thought was one of hope—hope that no more harm than being knocked unconscious had befallen the woman in his arms.
"Alina, I never thought I'd see you again." The pirate whispered to her. "Please wake up, love."
The witch skirted around the florist, deciding he could wait. What her friend had going on with her friend was far more interesting.
"So this is your Alina, huh?" she knelt down to get a closer look, finally having a face to put the stories. "She's the one who came before my mother and Milah?"
"Do not speak of them!"
"But that is the truth, is it not?"
"Alas, it is."
"What is she even doing here?"
"I have no clue. You enacted that bloody curse, not me."
The witch waved a hand of dismissal. "Never mind that. You know that she is still married that fool over there, correct?"
"That detail has not escaped my knowledge."
"Then as long as that remains true, things will not go the way you two wanted, like how they were in Neverland."
"Do not speak of things you know nothing about!"
"I only have the stories that you shared with me."
The pirate cursed softly and said nothing, so his friend kept going.
"Since you know the name that she goes by in Storybrooke and who she's married to, then surely you know who she looks like…"
"Belle." Came the terse reply.
"Belle, who, especially after healing from a gunshot wound that you inflicted upon her, will not take so kindly to the fact that you and her mother were lovers once."
"Are you quite finished?"
"I am."
"Terrific. Now help me get her to the hospital."
"What about the florist, though?"
"Right. I suppose he also needs taken care of because Belle would be most unhappy if she finds out that we left her father out here."
"Agreed, and we will get them to the hospital, but first I want to hear you say her name."
"I already said it—Alina."
"That's the name she gave herself after her falling out with her kind. I want you to say her actual name, the one she had when she was with you."
In that moment, all time seemed to stand still and even the crickets were still, holding their breath so that they wouldn't miss the answer.
"Her name," said the pirate to the witch. "Is Tinkerbell."