Out of all the residents in Storybroooke, Jefferson's curse was the worst. Not only was he sent to Storybrooke, but he still had all his memories. He remembered who he was, his Grace and their old home, everything. Every second of the day he's forced to remember Grace and the life he lost, as well as having this new life imprinted in his brain. It's like two lives that are battling for dominance in his mind.

He's sitting in his living room with a cup of tea in his hand, but his mind is far too troubled to focus on his tea. He's thinking about the tea parties he used to have with Grace and the force of the memory is causing him to tremble. His hand is shaking so violently that it causes the hot tea to slosh out and burn his skin. Soon the memory become too much for him to handle and with a loud scream he throws the delicate china cup at the wall, causing it to shatter and stain the wall with the brown liquid it was holding.

Almost immediately he hears hurried footsteps and a moment later the owner of the footsteps, a girl named Fiona, comes stumbling to a stop at the door. She's always been a clumsy girl.

"Are you alright? I heard you scream." she says, her voice set in a worried tone. Of course she's worried, she's always worried.

"I'm fine." he snaps at her. He has yet to move off the couch to clean up the mess he caused but he finds that she has already beaten him to it. She quickly grabs a small towel from the kitchen then begins wiping away the tea from the wall.

"Why did you get upset?" she asks him quietly. She's finished wiping away the tea and is now gathering the broken china pieces into the towel.

"For the same reason I do every other time." he says angrily and stands, kicking some stray pillows out of his way while he goes to the kitchen. Fiona follows after him and tosses the broken pieces of china in the garbage. He looks out the window and sees that his garden is looking as pristine and perfect as always which means her job is done for the day. He glances back at the girl who was, as always, covered in dirt. Her jeans were even ripped from the thorns on the rose bushes.

"You're done for the day. You can leave now." he says and snatches the towel out of her grubby hands. She looks at the floor as red fills her cheeks.

"I just wanted to help you..." she says softly.

Jefferson feels momentarily guilty for treating her so harshly, but then his guilt is dissolved when he remembers just how horrible his life is now. He'd even take Wonderland over this!

"I thank you for it but that's not your job, is it? So you can leave now," he says angrily. She hesitates and Jefferson's anger explodes. "Leave now!" he shouts at her. The girl jumps and practically runs away from him and a moment later he hears the door slam.

Jefferson wanders back to his couch and collapses on to the couch. Grace won't be home for another hour so he simply curls up and closes his eyes; allowing the memories of his past life to take over his mind.


Today; the memories are about Fiona.

In Storybrooke, she works as Jefferson's personal gardener, due to the fact he has an enormous garden in the back of his mansion. She spends most of her time in the garden because it takes her hours to go through the entire thing. It doesn't bother her though because she often prefers the being in nature compared to being trapped indoors. Jefferson blames that on her other life, back home in their own world. Back home her true name was not Fiona, it was Preziosa. She was a princess of a small land. Jefferson had heard rumors about her family. He had heard that her mother, the queen, was a kind and beautiful woman who was fair to her subjects. The king, however, was supposedly mean, ugly and insane. One day to everyone's dismay, the queen died and the deranged king decided to marry Preziosa, his own daughter because he deemed her to be the only woman who could match his deceased wife's beauty.

So the terrified Preziosa ran away from her home.

Her father sent his soldiers to bring her back but before they could find her, Preizosa found an elderly woman who gave her a piece of wood. She encouraged Preziosa to bite the wood because it would save her. So she did and found herself to be turned into a bear. An actual bear. The elderly woman who had given her the stick was actually an enchantress. So Preziosa escaped her father, but one day she was captured by a strange, cruel man and she was far too gentle to fight back and the man sold her to a gypsy. Of course she was still in bear from at the time because she was frightened that if she were to turn back into a human, she'd be brought back to her father. So the gypsy would bring her to different fairs and markets and she would carry children around on her back, like she was a horse instead of a bear.

It was at a market that Jefferson himself first met the she-bear. He found it odd that a bear would be gentle enough to allow children to ride on its back, and he also found it odd that the bear carried a piece of wood in its mouth. However he had greater matters on his mind with Grace and selling mushrooms to give the subject too much thought.

The sky was just beginning to turn dark when Jefferson and Grace pack up and begin to head home for the day. As they were leaving, Grace grabbed his sleeve and pulled him to a stop. She was looking at the bear, who was chained to a post while the gypsy went to the tavern to drink her problems away.

"Papa, that bear is trapped..." she says quietly.

"I know, but there's nothing we can do about it. Sorry, love." he says as he scoops up the little girl. As gentle as the bear may have seemed before, there's not telling what it would do to a little girl like Grace and there was no way he would ever put her in any sort of danger. So he carries her home, and soon the bear has completely been erased from his mind.

When they return to the market a few days later, the bear is nowhere to be seen. But on their way home through the woods, Grace points out something very unusual.

"Papa, look!" she whispers excitedly and points to the river. There sits a young woman with long, dark hair. She has water cupped in her raised hands and she lets it trickle over her hair and she messages it in with her fingers. Sitting beside her is a piece of wood with teeth marks in it. It's then that Grace steps on a stick, causing it to snap. The girl jumps and looks at them, her eyes wild with fright. She grabs the piece of wood and jumps in the river, running through the water quickly to get to the other side. Grace begins running after her before Jefferson could grab her. By the time they reach the riverbank, the girl is gone. In her place is a black bear.


Jefferson hadn't expected Fiona to come back the next day. But she did. She arrived around 10am, with a few scones from Granny's in a paper bag. He was gazing through his telescope when he heard her knock. He walked to the door and looked through the peephole and is rather surprised to see the familiar dark-haired girl. He opens the door and she immediately thrusts the paper bag into his hands.

"Don't yell at me again please," she says quietly as she shoves the bag harder against his hands. He chews on his bottom lip and he knows he should apologize for his outburst yesterday.

"I won't... I, ugh, I'm sorry for yesterday-"

"It's fine. I'm heading to the back, enjoy your scones. I also got you strawberry jam, I know you like it." she says and quickly makes her way to the back of the house. He opens the bag and glances in. She did get strawberry jam. He forgot she knew he liked it.

He makes his way back to the kitchen and flicks on the kettle while he grabs a place. Grace has already left for school two hours ago, so he had another long day of waiting for her to come home.

While he spreads the jam over his scone, he glances out the large window and sees Fiona kneeling amongst the rose bushes. He takes in her appearance; ratty blue jeans, a large oversized and stained grey shirt and black sneakers that look like they're about to come apart at the seams. Her wild hair is pulled into an attempt at a braid, but he knows it'll come apart soon. That's one of the things he's noticed about her is that her hair simply cannot hold in a braid.

The loud whistling of the kettle soon fills the air, so he collects a bag of tea and plops it into the pot and then fills it with boiling water. While he waits for it to steep, he munches on his scones. They're good, still warm and the jam practically melts over them. However, a sudden memory hits him so hard that the scone falls from his now shaking hand. He remembers eating strawberries with Grace when she was small, and her little mouth would get covered in the red juice. She'd look up at him with her brown eyes sparkling and her mouth set in a grin. How he loved it when she did that.

A sudden rumble of thunder causes him to once again come painfully back to reality. His eyes travel back to the window and he sees a few drops of rain- but then with another loud rumble of thunder a downpour erupts.

"Shit," he mutters. He stands and collects his plate and drops it into the sink and begins to pour his tea. The rain makes it difficult to see Grace through the telescope, which bothers him immensely. He hopes she brought her rain coat to school.

He pours himself some tea before settling in his favorite chair with a book. His mansion came with a fully stocked bookshelf, but they were all from this world and were strange and unfamiliar to him. He can't afford to complain because he knows he has no other option for entertainment, so he grabs a book by the name of the "Princess Bride" and sits down, preparing to waste away several hours before his Grace come home.

It is about two hours later when he finally tears his eyes away from the pages. His teacup has long since been drained and he finds himself craving some more. He stands and stretches his sore muscles, frowning when he hears cracks coming from his elbows and knees. He grabs his tea-cup and heads to the kitchen and turns on the burner so the teapot will begin to heat up.

He looks out the window and finds that it is still raining out. He notices that the delicate flowers in his garden are beginning to bend under the weight of the water on their petals.

It's only then does he remember Fiona, who was in the garden. He looks back up and doesn't see her beside the rose bushes so he can only guess that she has run to the shed. He could let her stay there... But he knows the shed leaks and she's already been out there for a long time. So he grabs an umbrella and makes his way outside. He walks through the wet grass, shivering as the moisture makes it's way through his shoes. He finally reaches the shed and pushes the door open and finds his suspicions to be confirmed. Fiona sits huddled on an old work bench with her arms shoved inside her large shirt. She looks up at him with a look of pure surprise. He rolls his eyes.

"Stop staring at me and come here," he sighs. The girl jumps up and quickly goes to him, huddling her shaking body against his. He doesn't offer much body warmth but it's better than nothing. The two begin walking back to the mansion silently with Fiona still pressed to Jefferson's side.

Once they get back inside, Jefferson instructs Fiona to make herself some tea while he gets blankets from the upstairs bedroom. He grabs a fluffy quilt and makes his way back downstairs.

"Come to the living room," he calls out as he reaches the end of the stairs. He makes his way to the room, grabs his book and flops on the couch. The cushions let out a whistle of air as his weight settles on to them. Fiona enters a moment later, with two cups of tea in her hands. She makes her way to the couch and carefully sets the tea on the coffee table before settling on to the couch herself. He tosses the quilt over her tiny frame and she pulls it close, relishing the immediate heat.

"Thank you," she says quietly, peering at him from over the quilt.

"You're welcome." he answers and grabs his tea. He takes a long sip and the liquid warms his body. She reaches forward and takes her tea in her hands, letting the heat of the cup warm her chilled hands.

"Why are you being so kind today?" she asks him but immediately looks regretful and opens her mouth to apologize, but Jefferson raises his hand as a sign to stop.

"Do you normally think I'm mean?" he asks her.

"Not mean... Just... Annoyed. Sad maybe. I think you're a lot of things," she admits.

Jefferson turns and fully looks at his gardener, who's now practically hidden under the quilt. Some of the residents of Storybrooke have become completely different people than who they were. Some of them have become meaner, others kinder and others quieter. But she has stayed the same. She's still Preziosa, the frightened she-bear who is too gentle and too quiet for her own good.

"Are you mad at me?" she asks him quietly.

"No. Now no more questions or I'll put you back into the shed," he replies. Fiona closes her mouth tightly and looks away from him. Jefferson lets out a small sigh and grabs his book, using it as a shield to hide his face from her.

Jefferson can't deny the fact that she's right, he's not kind to her, at least not often. Jefferson can't exactly explain why he's often rude and cruel to Fiona. Perhaps it's because he finds her childlike innocence too much like Grace. Perhaps it's because he hates that she can't remember who she really is, so it's a constant reminder that he's alone in this world. Or maybe it's because he's too scared to allow himself to care for another person other than Grace. He only allowed himself to do that once, with Grace's mother. And what happened with that woman left him feeling broken and unwanted. He doesn't want to feel like that ever again. So he will only allow himself to care about Grace and no one else.

Or at least, that's what he's going to try to do.

Hi readers :) tell me if you like this! I may continue it if you guys like it :)