This story is the first of two I'm writing for the OUAT Winter Whump event on Tumblr. It got a bit delayed due to some real life angst my family and I have been suffering though for a few weeks, but it's finally finished.
For this story, I did a bit of a re-write of portions of episode 7-19, Flower Child as there was so much wasted opportunity for good whump there! Anyone not interested in the S7 characters will probably want to wait for my second story later this month, but for everyone else, get ready for a little bit of Detective Rogers in peril. Note: Gothel is the featured villain here so fair warning as there are some vague mentions of her history with Rogers.
So little had made sense for weeks now in the Heights and Detective Rogers' inquisitive mind was in overdrive. Every time he thought he'd guessed the next move correctly, he'd found himself face to face with his often condescending partner who was all-too-happy to remind him of his failures. It wasn't as though Weaver was giving him any answers either, just more cryptic questions and general annoyance. Granted, a fair portion of his frustration was his own damned fault. Weaver had warned him not to pursue his search for Eloise Gardner, but obsession had gripped him, forcing him to investigate every clue to hunt her down - although they'd likely never know exactly how or why Victoria Belfrey had imprisoned her in the tower. He'd managed to uncover bits and pieces of a story about how Eloise was evil and needed to be kept locked away from humanity, but he hadn't really believed any of it. Not until bodies started turning up all over the Heights - Belfrey's included.
Maybe he should have listened to Weaver's advice, but he just couldn't help himself. He'd been so driven to find the girl who had haunted his memory for years, only to discover that maybe she wasn't really the person he'd imagined her to be. Maybe if he'd heeded his partner's warning, he wouldn't be in his current predicament, not that it would matter for much longer. He'd be able to hang on a little while…
Maybe, just maybe, someone would come searching for him or maybe Tilly would spring back to her senses?
But the reality was - who would be looking for him?
One hour earlier
She was mad. Had to be. How else could he explain it?
Maybe he was mad. How had he allowed this woman to gain so much power over him?
He felt manipulated. Used. Hell, part of him felt downright violated, but yet he was still inexplicably drawn to her.
Weaver had warned him that she was a powerful witch, but he honestly hadn't believed in witchcraft - at least until now as the realization struck that she had pulled him right into her coven's waiting trap. He'd been so gullible, but it also struck him as odd that he had no idea why she'd sought to ensnare him. All he had wanted to do was help Tilly, and then - there she was - Eloise Gardner and her coven of witches hidden behind dark, heavy, hooded cloaks. He and Tilly had wandered straight into the witch's wicked web and despite knowing that they were both in grave danger, a voice in the back of his head kept telling him to protect Tilly.
"Please, don't hurt her," he'd pleaded with the witches as one of them grabbed Tilly from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth as they led her away from him, disappeared down what must have been a staircase. He was at the wrong angle to be certain, even as he strained against his captor, struggling to get a better view. "Tilly's an innocent here...please, don't harm her…"
Eloise approached him, drawing close as her minions restrained him. He continued to struggle, trying to free himself from their grasp but despite their diminutive appearance, the hooded figures were far stronger than he expected. The witch pressed her body uncomfortably close to him, an air of triumph in her icy gaze. His own eyes clung to defiance, even as her hand raised up to meet his face, fingertips lightly tracing the shape of his jaw while she stared at him with a sickeningly sweet smile plastered on her lips - the way he would imagine a predator admiring its prey.
"You've got this all wrong, Captain," she insisted, never breaking her evil grin as she spoke. "Tilly isn't the one I intend to hurt. I need her. You, on the other hand, are far more expendable."
He had no idea what she was plotting or why she'd called him Captain - and she wasn't the first to do that either. All of his senses were screaming at him. There was no doubt he was in way over his head, but no matter how much he struggled, there was no breaking free.
"What do you want from us?" Rogers demanded. Hell, if he was going to die here, he at least wanted to know why.
"Oh, you'll prove useful to me yet again. You're going to help bring my creation to life," Eloise purred cryptically as she pulled her hand away from his face. "But first, I need you to stop being so uncooperative…" Her right hand unfurled once again before his eyes, this time, revealing a clump of what appeared to be sparkling pink dust resting in the curve of her palm. With one quick puff of her breath, the colorful particles were swirling around him and somewhere within that cloud, Rogers lost his will to resist, his body dropping limp into the arms of his captors.
As his senses gradually returned, Rogers immediately knew something wasn't right, but he didn't know yet just how precarious the situation actually was. His head throbbed and his recollection of the events that got him here was a tad cloudy - a sensation he'd experienced far too many times when he'd lost control of his indulgences. Only this was no mere hangover.
His eyelids parted slowly, adjusting to the dim light of the surroundings, seemingly illuminated solely by flickering flames. Ruddy hued rocks comprised both the floor and the walls of what must have been some sort of a cave but as his sight became clearer, he discovered that this cavern held far more sinister secrets than he could have imagined. He'd also come to the realization that he was suspended in the center of said cavern, his upper body bound tightly with vines. Vines? It certainly wasn't rope that secured him and as he tried to wiggle himself out of his bindings, he learned - rather painfully - that the vines were covered in thorns. Dozens of thorns, sharp as needles, jabbed into his bare skin with even the slightest movement on his part. He'd clearly been impaled a few times already as he could feel the tickle from the little rivulets of blood making a path down his leg to drip off of his big toe.
What he couldn't tell from his vantage point was that his nearly nude body hung directly above an intricate design carved into the stone below - one the same shape as the coven's symbol he'd been seeing all over Hyperion Heights. Surrounding him were the dark, caped figures, each standing at one of the eight points of the symbol softly chanting some unknown incantation. One of those hooded beings broke from the circle to canter towards him, apparently having realized he'd regained consciousness. The figure raised her head as she neared, enough for him to recognize her face as his gaze locked with that of Eloise Gardner once again.
The expression on her face confused him falling somewhere between satisfaction and sublimation. If this was indeed the same girl he'd tasked himself to locate so many years ago, what had happened to her that led her down this path? To have become involved with such a devilishly evil cult that had obviously stripped her of the innocence he'd remembered? Well, at least the innocence he thought he'd remembered… Had she been so offended by his failure to protect her as a child that she'd spent all of these years planning ways to make him pay for that failure? Even after he'd rescued her from Belfrey's prison? Hadn't getting shot and spending the better part of a decade searching in vain been penance enough?
"Captain…" Eloise purred into his ear, her lips so close to his skin that he could feel the warmth of her breath, sending his body into an involuntary, repulsed shudder. "Just what is going on inside that pretty head of yours?"
"Why are you doing this?" was the question that crossed his lips, although there were so many others demanding to be asked as well. "I tried… I tried to help you… I freed you…" he stammered, his mind conflicted by both a desire to fight his thorny restraints and a total lack of willpower to do so.
"Oh, Captain," she said through that same salacious grin, "we've such a torrid history… Where would I even begin?"
"History?" He didn't understand how their few interactions could be construed as history. "Eloise, we barely know anything about each other aside from the fact that I spent years searching for you…and I did find you. Why this?"
"It's almost a pity that your memory didn't return like some of the others, but maybe it's for the better…" She stepped around to his back, her right hand trailing along the skin just above the waistband of his boxer briefs as she leaned in to address his left ear. "How about I start by re-introducing myself? My name is Mother Gothel, not Eloise, and we do indeed have some very interesting history. It might even have been so much more… I could have helped you seal your revenge against Rumplestiltskin while we pillaged and plundered the realms, but no. You surprised me. You chose the brat over me…"
"Brat? What - Tilly?" His stuttered words barely made sense in his own head, but they seemed to increase her ire.
"If that's what you want to call her," she scoffed. "You gave her a different name back then, but nonetheless, it won't matter for much longer."
"You haven't harmed her, have you?" he asked meekly, his voice cracking audibly at the thought as his eyes grew wide with fearful anticipation.
"No, I haven't harmed Tilly. As I said before, she isn't the one I plan to harm. I need her magic to help initiate my spell…" She paused her statement as she ambled around to face him once again, the iciness of her stare prickling every hair on the back of his neck. "But I need something else from you first…" Her fingertips made contact with his thigh, the skin searing beneath her touch as he fought back a swell of nausea. If this was what she wanted, he wasn't interested, but as her right hand slithered up toward his hip, she raised her left hand in front of her chest, making certain that he would witness her next move. Out of thin air, what might only have been described as a giant thorn materialized from her palm. It was at least the length of her forearm and his terrified eyes instantly focused on its razor sharp point - even more so as she ghosted that needle-like point across his chest, drawing tiny droplets of blood as she passed it through the course, dark hair almost indecently.
"Eloise…" His voice came out as a whimper as he tried his best to shrink away from her, but the brambles encircling him only seemed to squeeze tighter. "I can still help you…" The cop in him was still trying to reason with her, even if his efforts might be deemed futile.
"Yes, my dear Captain, you most certainly can help me," she assured him as that devilish grin crossed her features yet again. "I absolutely require your assistance to activate a portion of my spell. More specifically, I need your blood." She refused to give him even a moment to process her statement before thrusting the pointed end of her oversized thorn into his abdomen, angling it upward, beneath his rib cage and into his vital organs, yet stopping short of his heart. She drew her arm backward, retracing the blood stained thorn so that she could admire her handiwork for a split-second before repeating the stabbing motion twice more.
The coppery scent of his own blood filled his nostrils as his mind and body were both overwhelmed by the shock of the assault. Blood mixed with his saliva as he coughed up a bubble that he couldn't swallow back down. Sanguine trails flowed from his torso to form a small puddle on the carved rocky ground below as his instinct to fight for his life finally kicked in and he gathered his remaining strength to try to free his arms so he could put pressure on the seeping wounds.
"Struggle all you want," she taunted him as she dropped the bloody thorn to the ground as she cupped his jaw with both of her hands. "My vines will only grow tighter, driving those thorns deeper into your flesh. Since we're going to be here for a while as your body is slowly drained of its blood, you may wish to spare yourself further anguish. I need your heart to keep pumping as long as possible to keep that blood fresh and potent until the entire medallion beneath you is filled. Then, I won't need you anymore…"
His body shook from a combination of fear and pain-driven convulsions as his blood flowed from the trio of punctures in his gut, but even with the agony she'd already inflicted upon him, the witch wasn't done with him quite yet. New vines began to sprout from those encasing his upper body, spiraling lower to wrap the rest of his torso and both of his legs with the constricting brambles. Every nerve ending in his body felt assaulted as dozens of newly formed thorns tore into his skin, drawing more blood. Rogers couldn't even remember if he'd screamed but a silent prayer kept reciting within his head that maybe someone would find him. And that blissful unconsciousness would befall him soon…
Rogers didn't know what stirred him back to consciousness but the immediate wash of pain over his entire being reminded him that he was still alive. The dead didn't experience pain, did they? He assumed he'd learn that answer soon enough - as soon as his lifeblood drained from him, his heart would inevitably cease and his lungs would no longer need to draw breath. He didn't have the energy within him to fight against the tightening vines, still feeling their intrusions across his arms, chest and back, but scarcely able to feel his legs anymore. He wanted to just go numb, to return to the peaceful, pain-free oblivion, but his mind apparently wanted him to be awake to bear witness to his own torture.
"I'm surprised to see you awake," a voice rang out from his right. Or was it from the left? Clearly his head wasn't thinking straight, the blood loss leaving him disoriented. "Perhaps you're a tad more resilient than I'd thought…" The voice continued in a sickeningly sweet cadence that made him want to retch even before he sensed the warmth of fingers brushing against his blood-soaked thigh. "You still have so much more to give…" He wished he could pull his leg away as the sensation of fingernails drawing lazy circles through the dampness only increased his nausea.
"What do you want?" He knew he'd asked the question before, but in his weakened state, he didn't remember the answer - certainly not the answer she was about to give.
"Oh, Captain, this goes back so far…," she mused. "Years ago, we met in a far away land, high in a tower where I needed you to provide the one thing that would allow me freedom from that prison - a new bloodline. You were so, how should I say this? Eager? So willing to provide me what I needed, but then, you betrayed me…"
Tower? Betrayal? Her words were conjuring images that bombarded his psyche, but were they memories or hallucinations? He didn't know if he could trust his own brain right now.
"Eloise…"
"Not Eloise - Gothel," she reminded him, her tone more annoyed than playful this time. "You really should try to remember me." Her hand instantly snapped from caressing his thigh to clutching his throat, her thumb and forefinger pushing his head upward to meet her gaze. "I want you to look at me while you hang there dying. I want you to regret ever choosing that brat instead of me!" She stabbed a manicured index finger towards one of the cloaked figures as he recognized Tilly's profile beneath the hood.
"Tilly…" he whispered, not even certain if his voice was loud enough for her to hear.
"She can't hear you. She's caught in a trance that I placed upon her. She'll keep mindlessly repeating that incantation over and over until your blood fills the rest of the medallion here. Then, as soon as she steps into the center, the mix of bloodlines will enact my spell and bring about the return of this land to its rightful ruler - Nature."
"Why Tilly? If we have history, that's between us," he argued weakly, energy waning quickly, but still possessing a flicker of determination to protect his young friend from this madwoman. "She has nothing to do with this…"
"Oh, but you're wrong there, Captain," she laughed. "Tilly - or Alice, as you used to call her - has everything to do with this. She's our daughter - the blend of our bloodlines - possessing some of your spunk and some of my magic. I need to draw that magic from her and it just so happens that her father's blood is the perfect conduit to do so."
"Wait - daughter? Tilly… Alice… she's my daughter?" he stammered, trembling as his already pain-wracked brain overloaded. "How can she be my daughter? I'm not old enough…"
That statement brought an amused cackle from his captor. "Looks can be so deceiving, Captain, but then curses can certainly play such tricks with your mind… You really don't look a day over two hundred."
Images came to him once again in vivid flashes as his barely lucid mind struggled to make sense of them without any context. A pirate ship. A tall, isolated tower. A small, blonde haired child. Eloise, yet not Eloise…
A hook.
His sullen eyes drew downward, seeking out the prosthetic hand attached to the wrist of his stumped arm which suddenly didn't feel right to him. The weight, the fit - all wrong.
He'd lost that hand in a bad car accident, hadn't he? He questioned his own recollection, no longer sure if anything he knew about himself was real. He was hanging here, slowly bleeding to death at the hand of a woman he'd thought he'd rescued and yet he felt as though he was right on the cusp of an epiphany.
His eyes squeezed shut as his body convulsed involuntarily. Why hadn't he told Weaver what he was doing? The only other person who knew he was here was Tilly and she was lost to some hypnotic trance. He didn't dare think what this witch would do to her once she'd served her purpose. He fought through the impending darkness to take in Tilly's features for what he feared would be the last time. Could she really be his daughter? He'd likely never know now as a single tear rolled across his cheekbone, its saline trail finding its way to the corner of his mouth just as his lips parted.
One single word rolled off his tongue as his body fell limp against the imposing vines.
Starfish.
His voice was scarcely a whisper yet that single utterance reverberated throughout the cavern, reaching the single pair of ears it was intended for. It echoed into Tilly's ear as a plea and her eyelids flew open, the chanting instantly ceased. Her hands raised to her head, tossing the hood off of her blonde locks as she lifted her chin.
She'd only been vaguely aware of her surroundings, but now, her senses were overwhelmed. The voices of the other hooded figures were all she could hear and she just wanted to drown them out. She tried to focus on something else - the crackle of the flames from the candles and torches positioned around the circle. Focus, Tilly, focus, she told herself. She concentrated on those flames, inhaling the scent of the burning wood, but she could smell something else too. Something faintly metallic...bloody…
Only then did she realize that there was another person in the center of the ring of caped figures - a person whose body was nearly obscured amongst a tangle of thorny vines. There was a pale, dark-haired man bound by those vines and while she couldn't make out the majority of his form, she could see that his legs were riddled with crimson trails and there was a pool of dark red liquid beneath his feet. And she could see just enough of his face to recognize that man suspended lifeless before her: the man she'd known as Detective Rogers. But she also felt an awakening within her muddled mind which reminded her that she'd known him far longer - and by a different name.
"Papa?"
The moment she uttered that single word, the rock walls of the cavern began to shake as if from the rumbling of an earthquake, showering her with pebbles and dust that rained from above. A newly defiant Tilly shrugged off the heavy dark robe, eyes wide as she frantically searched for the monster.
"Show yourself, Witch!" Tilly hollered, bolstered with newfound bravado. If he was still among the living, she had to save him. Had to save her Papa from this monster witch. It was all up to her and this time, she was determined to listen to the little voices within her head that assured her that she possessed the power to defeat this witch.
"I'm right here, Tilly," the witch replied as she took a step from behind her nearly lifeless prisoner.
"Let him go, you monster! You're hurting him and I can't allow that!" Tilly shouted. "You said that if I helped you, no one would get hurt but you lied! You always lie!" Both of Tilly's hands clenched into fists as Gothel continued to stare blankly back at her, entirely devoid of any human emotion.
"It's entirely too late for that, little girl," Gothel snapped back confidently. "As soon as his blood fills that medallion on the floor right there, my spell will begin and there's no one powerful enough to stop it. Not the Evil Queen nor the Wicked Witch. Not even the Dark One himself."
"Then I'll stop you," Tilly responded as she stood her ground with equal confidence. "You took my Papa away from me once. You aren't going to do it again." Her blue eyes reflected a fierce determination as Tilly set her jaw and racked her brain to recall how to harness her magic.
"Please…," Gothel dismissed her with a haughty wave of her hand. "You aren't any match for me. Just get out of my way and do as you're told…" With a faint flick of her wrist, another new growth of vines sprouted from the cluster binding Rogers and jettisoned toward Tilly. With only a fraction of a second to react, Tilly threw up her hands defensively in front of her face and instantly, the brambles froze mere inches from her, the thorns separating from the vines and falling harmlessly to the floor while tiny, white four-petal blossoms took their place. Tilly blinked a few times until the realization sunk in that she'd used magic to defend herself. She wasn't mad - well, at least not when it came to the existence of magic.
"Impressive, but you've still so much to learn," the witch continued to taunt her as Tilly attempted to move from the carved coven symbol beneath her feet. Gothel smirked as she watched the rock beneath Tilly's feet dissolve into mud that the younger woman sank into it, only to have it harden back into stone around her shoes, entrapping her in her position on the outer ring. "It would be rather rude of you to leave before my big performance - and I'm not done with you yet…"
Unable to step away, Tilly's eyes flittered wildly between the nearly inundated medallion on the ground before her and the pallid, expressionless face of her dying father whose head was drooped against his chest, body clearly only held upright by the witch's enchanted vines. She watched in seemingly slow-motion as a drop of blood fell from his toe and splashed into the sticky, crimson puddle.
"It's nearly time," Gothel announced with a giddy chuckle as a tiny evergreen tree pushed its way through the solid rock to emerge in front of one of the remaining cloaked figures. As the tree grew in stature, the cape worn by the nearest coven member slumped to the floor and the person who'd been beneath it seconds earlier vanished in the blink of an eye. "Six more to go… Then you."
"No," Tilly sobbed, cursing herself for ever agreeing to help this monster in the first place, but now, the witch had to be stopped. "No - I won't allow you to do this!"
"You won't allow me?" Gothel laughed off Tilly's cockiness. Apparently the girl had more of her father's personality than she'd believed. "Then stop me."
The challenge was issued as an insult, but Tilly didn't take it as such. She was going to prove that she had the strength to defeat this horrid person.
"Stay with me, Papa," she called out to him, still uncertain if he was alive or dead. "No matter what happens, I love you, Papa…" Silent promises now made, Tilly squeezed her eyes closed as her outstretched hands began to tremble. Another low rumble echoed throughout the cavern as flames flickered, billowed by some unseen wind that swirled dust and rubble around the young woman.
"What are you doing?" There was a faint hint of alarm in Gothel's voice this time as she feared she may have underestimated her daughter. She'd long known that her child possessed powers, but with no one to cultivate them, she'd doubted Tilly's ability to harness magic. But it was Gothel's discounting of that untamed nature to Tilly's magic which might prove far more dangerous.
"Love is always stronger than hate," Tilly stated as she clasped her hands together sending out a blast of powerful energy towards the blood-drenched medallion. The ground began to shake, mildly at first then growing in intensity as the rock began to crack, fissures zigzagging across the entire coven symbol until they reached the stone that encased Tilly's feet. The rock holding her crumbled away, allowing her to hop out of the circle and sever the connection necessary for Gothel's spell to proceed. The evergreen tree that had sprouted within the cavern withered away to ashes as the magic sustaining it evaporated.
"You insolent little brat!" the witch shouted, seething with anger. "How dare you?! Now you've ruined it! I should have killed you years ago - both of you!" She took a step forward, hands extended and prepared to unleash some new horror against her beleaguered daughter. But so blinded by her hatred of her own offspring, she failed to notice that the cracks beneath her feet were widening from the tremors, opening into a chasm that swallowed the witch, plunging her screaming into the void. Tilly didn't know what she should feel as the monster disappeared into the earth. She just stood there frozen until another voice roused her attention.
"Tilly?" she heard the voice call out to her, but was it merely inside her head? "Tilly?!" came the voice yet again as she blinked her eyes trying to figure out where the familiar voice originated. She recognized it now - Weaver - but she couldn't reply yet. Her fragile mind was still processing all that had just transpired. Everything she'd just made happen… And oh, no - Papa! She saw the familiar face of Detective Weaver - Rumplestiltskin - emerge from the entry passage, weapon and flashlight extended before him. "Tilly, are you alright?" he asked as he ventured deeper into the subterranean cavern.
Alright? Was she alright? She didn't even know but there were more important things to attend to… "Yes, I am," she responded frantically as she hurried toward the center of the room. "But he's not…" Weaver stopped short of entering the circle as he spied the huge, gaping cracks that transected it. His focus was drawn to the cluster of vines at the center of the ring where he now spotted his partner hanging motionless and entirely encircled by those same bloody vines which seemed to be withering away as Gothel's magic faded. Despite the fissures crisscrossing the ground beneath him which had drained away most of the blood, there was still enough visible on the rock for Weaver to know his partner wouldn't survive long with this amount of blood loss.
"We need to get him down from there somehow," Weaver stated. "The vines are dying and won't hold him for long…"
"I know," she insisted, trying to locate that magical trigger within her one more time. "I'm trying…" She'd never been particularly good at concentrating - at least not lately. She had to try and push all of her jumbled thoughts away to focus on her most important task - rescuing Papa. As the brambles crumbled, an invisible force caught Rogers, his limp form suspended in mid-air but seemingly with nothing holding him aloft. The unseen hand carried him safely across the fractured floor placing him gently atop a boulder beside Weaver just before the vines completely disintegrated to a pile of dust.
Without the bindings in the way, Weaver could see that his partner's body was riddled with puncture wounds, some of which were still oozing blood - a positive sign that his heart was still beating. Satisfied that immediate danger was over, Weaver tucked away his weapon, shining the flashlight's beam onto his partner's unconscious form as he felt for a pulse. "He's alive. He still has a heartbeat. I'll get the paramedics down here..."
A small smile crept across Tilly's face as her resolve finally broke, but that smile rapidly faded, her eyes welling with tears as yet another realization struck. His heart. Without another word, she bolted past Weaver and darted out of the cave.
She couldn't be here. She couldn't cause him more suffering…
The next few hours were tense ones. While her father was barely clinging to life, Tilly had vanished, leaving Weaver to be the one holding vigil in the hospital waiting room. Thankfully, the trip from Gothel's hideout beneath the old theater to the hospital was a short ride. Weaver had followed the ambulance in his own vehicle with lights and siren blaring to keep up with the paramedics. By the time he reached the Emergency room, Rogers' blood pressure had dropped to dangerously low levels and his breathing was erratic, but his most life threatening battle was against the uncontrollable bleeding. Something in his system was preventing his blood from clotting properly - likely Gothel's work as well.
But as far as the Emergency room personnel were concerned, Detective Rogers had been a victim of the Candy Killer, attacked while investigating the cave beneath the theater. He answered the barrage of questions as best he could, not even attempting to create a plausible explanation for the multitude of puncture wounds from the thorns. He just told them his partner had multiple stab wounds and didn't elaborate. There would be no mention of Eloise Gardner in Weaver's report, even though he had actually found his way to the cavern just as the witch plunged into the chasm, presumably falling to her death although one could never be entirely certain when there was no body left behind as evidence.
After the first hour of waiting, he'd called Roni and Henry to see if either had seen Tilly and filled them in on his partner's condition. Neither knew where Tilly might be but both offered to help locate her. Roni left the bar in Remy's capable hands as she left a message for her niece, hoping Tilly would seek out Margot's company and Henry set out to search some of Tilly's usual haunts. Only Roni, Kelly and Weaver knew the truth of Tilly and Rogers' relationship and while they understood her reasons for running, she needed to be aware of what was happening with her father, lest her fragile hold on her sanity be lost.
He wasn't overly surprised when he heard Roni's voice in the corridor, asking a nurse where she'd find the Emergency waiting area. He lifted his chin and nodded a greeting to her as she passed through the doorway, walking quickly across the crowded room to join him on a bench positioned against the far wall, away from prying ears.
"Have you heard anything yet?" Roni asked in a hushed whisper.
Weaver shook his head. "Not yet."
"Gothel?"
"Hopefully gone, like most of the objects she conjured. She fell into a giant crack that opened up beneath her."
"Did Tilly do that?" Roni wondered if battling her mother had contributed to the younger woman's unease.
"Yes," was Weaver's unpretentious reply as he slumped back against the wall. Roni mouthed a wow as she copied his posture, crossing her legs at the ankle.
"Margot thinks she knows where to find her," she told him. "Henry's taking a loop around the neighborhood too. She'll turn up."
"She knows she's Alice," Weaver stated without preface. "As soon as I said that his heart was still beating, I saw it in her eyes. She panicked."
"She remembered his poisoned heart…" Roni sighed. "That poor girl... She didn't want to cause him more pain. She must be devastated…" Weaver didn't answer; he already knew she was right. Getting her memory back, watching her father suffering and then having to destroy her mother just might have short-circuited Tilly's complicated mind.
But it was Roni who suddenly sat up straight, a quizzical arch to her eyebrow as she contemplated a thought that had leapt into the forefront of her mind.
"Did his heart stop?" she asked, almost a bit too loudly as it drew some unwanted attention from other people in the waiting room.
"What?" He'd heard the question, but wanted her to repeat it.
"Do you know if Rogers' heart stopped beating at any time?" she inquired once again, this time keeping her voice low since their conversation was about to head in a direction that wouldn't be easily explained to eavesdroppers.
"I couldn't hear everything that was said when the paramedics brought him in, but I thought I overheard something about him coding in the ambulance. Pretty sure that means his heart stopped, but he had a pulse when the ER took over. What are you getting at?"
"Have you been out of the magic business too long, Rumple?" she asked, using his real name in public for the first time since they'd awakened from Gothel's curse. This was definitely Regina talking now, not her barmaid alter ego, Roni. "Gothel placed that poisoned heart curse on him a long time ago and we were never able to find a cure. The only way to end the curse was death - his heart no longer beating. Do you think there was a time limit as to how long his heart needed to be stopped before they brought him back?"
Weaver's lips pursed in thought as he rubbed the hint of stubble sprouting on his chin. He definitely needed a shave, but whiskers were merely a distraction as he tossed ideas around in his head. "CPR isn't exactly commonplace in the Enchanted Forest, nor are machines to shock a heart back into rhythm. A curse such as that one should die along with its victim…"
"Then it's possible that the poison died when his heart stopped beating the first time. There's no way a curse from our land would have a caveat built in for someone being brought back from essentially being dead."
"There's only one way to test that theory though...and Tilly is nowhere to be found," Weaver reminded her.
"We'll find Tilly and explain. If your partner pulls through this, I'm pretty sure he won't be going anywhere for a few days. We've got some time."
"There is still the matter of breaking the other curse," he added.
"One curse at a time, please…"
Two days later
There was that pain again. Maybe not as intense as before, but definitely still there. Little pinpricks he could feel everywhere - annoying and even a little bit itchy but they were only the prelude to the dull, somewhat burning ache that radiated through his chest and abdomen. His head was still on the fuzzy side but he remembered someone stabbing him - Eloise. No, not Eloise - Gothel. The witch that Tilly had been correct to call a monster.
He struggled to force his eyelids open, his vision assaulted by the bright lights above him. He remembered being in a dark cavern, completely bound by thorn-covered vines that were constricting him tighter and tighter until he'd blacked out. Or maybe he'd blacked out from the blood loss…? Maybe both? But it was apparent that he wasn't in that dank cave any longer. He blinked a few times to allow his sight to adjust, turning his head slightly to get a look at a stark white wall that contained only a clock and a dry-erase whiteboard that was filled with incomprehensible scribbles.
He started to become aware of additional sensations as he started putting the pieces together. He wasn't hanging from those vines anymore; he was laying down, presumably in a bed. He could feel the softness of fabric beneath his fingers and thought he sensed something encircling his wrist, although not as painful as the witch's brambles. He raised his hand to a height he could see it without moving around too much and learned he'd been correct - some sort of rubber or plastic band was fastened around his wrist and there was some plastic tubing affixed to the back of his hand with tape that was irritating his skin. An incessant beeping resounded in his ear, mixed in with other faint sounds he'd yet to make sense of, but it was enough for him to figure out his location.
He was in a hospital - which meant he'd survived the witch's attack.
And surprisingly, he discovered he wasn't alone.
"It's about damn time you woke up." He knew the voice instantly, recognition sending an involuntary shudder down his spine. The demon masquerading as his partner.
"Crocodile? Come to execute me while I'm vulnerable?" he asked his visitor.
"If I'd wanted to do that, I wouldn't have waited until you awakened, Captain," Weaver replied. "I'm just Detective Weaver now. I put the rest behind me to honor Belle's wishes, although being caught up in Gothel's curse hadn't really been a part of my plan. I'm just trying to do my best to help people so that someday, I'll be able to join her - and that includes trying to help you and your wayward daughter…"
"Tilly - does she know?"
"She does. It was her magic that defeated Gothel and her coven. The witch was swallowed up by the earth she revered. Alice is down the hall in the waiting room with Regina."
"She's here? Alice is here?" Rogers asked, his voice growing agitated. "But the curse…"
"Relax… She's not close enough right now to disturb your poisoned heart, but Regina has a plausible theory that might mean you're cured."
"There's no known cure for a poisoned heart," Rogers scoffed, his eyes dropping with disappointment.
"That's not necessarily true," Weaver began. "Facilier was able to cure Henry's heart with a bit of magic born from Lucy's true belief and the remnants of Ella's glass slipper. While that same magic isn't available for you, you may still have been cured in a much simpler manner - your death."
"My death? My head is muddled enough right now but clearly, I'm still alive - despite many valiant efforts…"
"Technically, you died twice," Weaver stated. "Your heart stopped beating twice - once in the ambulance on the way here and once on the OR table while they were trying to stitch your insides back together. From what we were told, you were technically dead for over a minute before they were able to resuscitate you. Curses aren't designed to survive death - even mine. Generally, where we come from, if your heart stops beating, you're dead. They don't try to bring you back. The curse should have ended the moment your heartbeat ceased."
"Should have? That's an awful stretch… What if you're wrong? It'll only cause both of us more pain…"
"Then it's a good thing to do it here in the hospital where they can treat you should we be wrong, but what if we're right? You can be with your daughter again."
Rogers had to contemplate the possibility for a moment. As much as he loathed trusting his long-time enemy, he also had the memories of being Detective Rogers and in this world, he actually trusted Weaver's word. He'd also become close with Regina, the reformed Evil Queen, whom he'd now entrust with his life. What strange company he was keeping…
"What does Alice think?" This was going to affect his daughter as much as it would him so he wanted her to be involved in the decision.
"She's frightened, naturally, but she's also very curious. She believes that Regina might be correct, but there's only one way to find out…" Weaver motioned toward the hallway beyond the room's doorway as he stood up. "Should I go get her?" Rogers swallowed back the lump in his throat, but nodded an affirmative. Whatever would happen, he was prepared to face the consequences.
Seconds later, he smiled at the sight of his daughter's unruly golden locks flashing past his window into the corridor before she bounded through the open door, although she stopped short of approaching her father's bedside. He suddenly felt horribly exposed, clad only in the thin gown the hospital had dressed him in, his truncated left arm bare, no hook or prosthetic to hide his deformity.
"Starfish," he greeted her with her childhood nickname.
"Haven't heard anyone call me that for a long time, Papa…," she replied, her cheeks flushing with a mix of anxiety and embarrassment. This wasn't how he would have wanted her to turn out, but she didn't care anymore. She wanted her Papa back more than anything. "I've missed you so much."
"And I've missed you, too, Love," he insisted as he shifted nervously on the bed. "There's only one way for us to know if this curse is really gone…"
"You think…?" she asked timidly, taking one tentative step closer to the bed.
"Come closer," he instructed, bracing himself for the onslaught of pain as she made her way across the room at an almost agonizingly slow pace. He felt a few twinges, but nothing was any worse than the discomfort from the stabbing. "It's okay, I'm fine." He offered his reassurance with a weak, timid smile. He extended his hand to her, eyes begging her to grasp it, eager for even that tiny bit of contact.
Alice squeezed her eyes closed as she reached for his hand, awaiting the burning sensation from the mark emblazoned into her wrist as their fingertips touched for the first time in many years. Neither knew what would happen, but there was nothing. No burning. No aching. No magic driving them apart - and there was absolutely nothing containing Alice's ecstatic joy as she nearly threw herself into her papa's arms to hug him as tightly as she could.
"It worked! Papa, it worked!" she exclaimed gleefully, excited that she could finally embrace him after such a long time - almost so excited that she missed his pained grunt beneath her, turning her head expecting to see his smiling face but instead seeing an uncomfortable grimace and the dampness of tears around his eyes. "Oh, no…" her mood turned somber in a split-second. " I spoke too soon…?" She backed away, ready to run, but he held tight to her wrist.
"It's alright, Starfish. My heart is fine. It's just my other injuries…"
"Oh, Papa, I'm so sorry! I was so excited, I forgot what that monster did to you! I hope I didn't hurt you too much…"
"Nothing that won't heal," he chuckled as he gritted through the ache in his chest, drawing his arms in tighter as if trying to hold his guts in. "I promise, it will all be fine…" There were more tears flowing now but all were tears of joy.
"I love you so much, Papa."
"And I - you, my Starfish."