Well, here it is - the last story in the Common Ground series! Enjoy!
This is my family. I found it all on my own. It's little and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. ~ Lilo & Stitch
Regina asked as she studied the woman standing outside the shop, looking excitedly… towards Will? "She's not from Storybrooke? Who is she?"
Everyone's attention turned to the window then, towards the blonde who'd just realized that the shop's door was already unlocked.
"Ana!" Will cried, jerking to his feet.
Jefferson stood too, slowly, murmuring under his breath in shock, "Annie?"
Then both men suddenly declared at the same time, "That's my wife!"
Three days after Zelena had moved in with Jefferson and Grace, Grace had walked in the door after a shift at the library to see smoke roiling out of the oven. She'd yelped – Paige had wanted to panic – and darted around for as long as it took for her to identify why things were smoking and fix the issue. Once both she and Zelena – Jefferson wasn't home yet – had calmed down and Zelena had explained, "I do know how to cook; your contraptions are different and I'm not used to handling them alone yet" they had been fine. The two of them had opened windows and made a batch of cookies before Jefferson was home. After that moment of panic, making those cookies together had been their first step in really bonding.
And this moment right here in Golden Blends – with both her papa and Will Scarlet claiming "that's my wife!" – this moment felt a lot like the first second she saw that smoke rolling out of the oven. It was better than that in a way, though, because no one had even taken her into account where she sat at the counter, allowed – at least for now – to be a silent observer. But it was worse too, because they were dealing with something far more important than smoke and cookies.
This woman was a human being and a stranger to Storybrooke. And if she was Jefferson's wife, that made her Grace's mother! The mother she'd never met, never even cared to meet since she'd gotten close to so many other "adopted" parents, the woman who'd left her and her papa when Grace was only an infant – and now she was inside Golden Blends… and running towards Grace!
No! Grace nearly toppled off of her barstool trying to get away from the blonde. Then there were hands holding her steady, a warm voice breathing softly in her ear, "it's okay" – Henry – and she was able to clear away some of the panic in her mind and look clearly at what was happening.
The woman wasn't paying Grace any mind whatsoever; her concentration seemed zeroed in on Will Scarlet, who was still standing beside Grace at the counter.
"Ana!" Will murmured in awe, pulling the woman to him and kissing her, holding her, crying with joy over her presence here.
Grace had seen true love reunions before, and this was another one… but what did that mean if she was also Grace's mother? Her papa's wife? Will Scarlet's wife?"
Regina said what they were all thinking when she asked sharply, "What is going on here?"
"Brilliant question!" Jefferson snapped.
Only then did the woman Will had called Anna – the same woman Jefferson knew as "Annie?" – notice he was there – but it was very obvious that she noticed. She jumped a mile back from Will and twisted around to face the table Jefferson was standing at, gasping his name as she paled.
"Hiya, Annie," he drawled.
"You two know each other?" Will asked in confusion, gesturing between Anna and Jefferson.
Ana squirmed, answering without glancing away from Jefferson, "It's complicated."
"Not really," Zelena spoke up dryly. "You married him, gave him a daughter, and then left them both. That's pretty simple."
"Wait," Will spit out, looking at Anastasia in astonishment, "You have a kid?"
"It was a long time ago and we were married far too young! You try getting married and pregnant at thirteen; that will make anyone miserable out of their minds!" She whirled back to face Jefferson, ordering, "And don't pretend like I was the only one who was unhappy; it was a mercy that I left!"
"You want me to think it was a mercy that you left me with an infant to go to another man?!"
"I did nothing of the sort! I was thirteen; all I wanted was a little adventure in my life – and you'll be pleased to know I didn't even manage that for quite a few years!"
"Then where were you?!"
"I returned to my mother in Sherwood Forest once I realized I wouldn't be getting to Wonderland easily," Anastasia answered archly. "I was a child – far too young to be married to you as my step-father arranged – and if I couldn't have adventure I wanted the comfort of my mother – which I got when I returned home, seeing as my step-father had died… until my step-sister married a prince and my mother's expectations became too much to live with. By then, I'd met Will. We fell in love and found a way to Wonderland. I found happiness!" She paused, assessing Zelena just as much as Zelena was assessing her for a moment before she said in a little softer a tone, "And apparently you did too."
"It's… a rather recent development," Jefferson muttered, glancing at Grace over Anastasia's shoulder. "And just because I turned out okay, who's to say that you didn't hurt-"
Henry cut him off, snapping fiercely, "Shut up!"
Only when her true love spoke did Grace realize how far away his words sounded, how her fingernails were digging painfully into her palms… how she was desperately trying to remove herself from the reality of what was happening in front of her… and how very desperately she was failing in her attempt.
So she did the one thing she knew would get her away from it – she ran.
She shoved Will out of her way and dodged the numerous hands that tried to stop her as she left, but it still felt like a ridiculous eternity before she finally got out the door, leaving behind the sound of her father calling out for her and Anastasia's faint, "Is that… her?"
