When the odd troop of people arrived back at the Sheriff's office, Emma was unsurprised to note Regina sitting at her desk, looking particularly royal. Regina knew everything that was going on in her town, even now that the curse was broken and nobody liked her anymore.
David and Mary Margaret entered behind them, and there was all the perfunctory glaring between Regina and Mary Margaret, and between David and Gold, who were still glaring from their first encounter at Granny's—then Belle cleared her throat, and Gold stopped looking at David to focus his attention on her.
Confusion over how, exactly, Belle could shelve the knowledge of the horrible things that Gold had done enough to date the man aside, Emma could admit that she was obviously a positive influence.
The surprise was Gabriel, the sweetshop owner, leaning against the wall. He had an easy sort of grace about him, and though he was only about 5'8, he carried himself such that he seemed much taller. She hadn't even had a single conversation with him, and nobody had told her who he had been in the Enchanted Forest. She'd kind of had the impression that he wasn't particularly important to the grand scheme and power play that had been going on between Mary Margaret and Regina (except, of course, for the fact that it had all been orchestrated by Gold)
"Hey, pretty boys," he taunted without pushing off the wall.
"Gabriel?" Sam asked flatly.
"Fuck!" Dean yelled. "What the fuck, dude?"
"Are you that Gabriel?" Emma asked, flashing back to the books that had had the trickster in them. "I thought that he was dead?"
"Up until about ten seconds ago, so did we," Sam pointed out, lurching forward to catch Dean by the arm before he could try to give Gabriel a black eye.
"What, you think Daddy's up for resurrecting baby bro on the side, but not me?" Gabriel drawled.
"But why are you here?" Emma asked. "I mean, that doesn't make any sense! You've been here since before I came here, you were cursed. You weren't in Henry's book and I wasn't sure who you were supposed to be, but you were obviously from the Enchanted Forest."
"Hold on, how do you know about him?" Sam asked. "And what do you mean, cursed?"
"I know about him because I've read your books," Emma said, smirking at the pained expression on Sam's face. "Don't worry, I tried to skip over the sex scenes, I don't want to know any of that. But I gotta say, Sam, that thing that you pulled with Madison—kinky, seriously, fuck, I thought you were the vanilla one." It physically pained her to even think about Sam's sex life, but the expression on his face was so worth it.
"Oh, you mean that stunt with the handcuffs and the chocolate sauce and the vibrating—" Gabriel started, sounding utterly delighted.
"Ack!" Sam interrupted. "Please stop talking now."
"I'd expect it from Dean-o, but not from you, Sasquatch. Those books are hysterical," Gabriel said happily. He turned to Emma. "Tell me, were you a fan? There are a lot of people online that refuse to accept that I'm dead—in fact, the entire community insists that I either faked my death or got resurrected, it does marvelous things for a person's ego."
"Right, like yours needs the help," Dean muttered.
"Dean, how does she know about those books?" Sam asked.
"I told her," Dean sighed. "I went to see her after you fell into hell. It took ages to find her, but I wanted her to know, what you had done. I wanted someone who knew that you actually existed to know about the sacrifice that you had made, and I didn't have the energy to tell her everything."
Sam paused, and turned very deliberately to look at Emma. "So you know everything."
"Yeah. I am so sorry. About everything, Sam. And I wish so badly that I could have been there for you. And you, yes, damnit, I loved you!" Emma snapped at Gabriel. "Seriously you're like my favourite character. Well. I like Castiel, and you. Crowley's entertaining, and Death and I have an epic bromance. Of course, the odds were a bit skewed, because I wasn't about to think of either of them as characters instead of people. But why are you here? That doesn't make much sense."
"Since I got on the 'stop the apocalypse' train a bit late and all, Daddy didn't put me back into this world," Gabriel explained. "He suppressed my Grace down to just residual magic—probably so that I could catch the Dark One's attention and defend myself from the Evil Queen—and plopped me in the middle of fairytale world. Then she activated the curse and I ended up trapped here." He gestured to Regina. "When you broke it, I got all of my memories back, not just the ones from the Enchanted Forest. I've been laying low for the last couple of months, trying to figure out what happened in Heaven, because it's a huge mess up there."
Gold went still. "You can leave," he said.
Gabriel's eyes flashed, and he nodded sharply. "I can," he admitted. "I don't know how to fix that problem for anyone else, but yes, I can leave. So basically, Dad knew about the curse, and that's why he put me when he did and where he did. Convenient ride back from timeout and everything. So! Emma Swan, saviour extraordinaire and child of Snow White and Prince Charming," Gabriel said. "How do you know Dumb and Dumber?"
"Hey!" Dean protested.
"You released Leviathan," Gabriel seethed. "Of all the stupid, ridiculous, irresponsible things, you two morons could possibly have done, you released Leviathan! I thought Lucifer was as far as you idiots got, but no, let's find something even worse, shall we? Something that'll eat the planet whole? Why the hell were you messing around with Purgatory, anyway?"
"It was Cas," Dean muttered. "We didn't figure out what he'd done until he was nearly going to do it, and then we couldn't stop him."
"So apparently, you're Dumb and Dumber, and Castiel gets the dubious honor of being 'Dumbest'," Gabriel snarked.
"See, that's why he's my favourite character," Emma said happily.
Her brothers glared at her. "You should hang out with Charlie," Dean said.
"So? How do you know them? I was under the impression that people who were acquainted with them for any length of time usually end up dead? I know from experience," Gabriel said.
"Yes, who are these people, Miss Swan?" Regina demanded, turning her laser glare to Emma instead. Emma resisted the urge to glare back.
"These are my older brothers," she sighed. "Dean and Sam Winchester, meet the mayor, Regina Mills, and Mr. Gold, the unsavoury guy who owns most of the property in the town. That's Belle, his… um…" Emma trailed off awkwardly. As far as she could tell, Gold was basically Belle's sugar daddy. Nothing at all against them, especially since, despite the evidence to the contrary, Belle was a pleasant, friendly, intelligent and well-adjusted individual, who was mentally more healthy than Emma could boast of in her entire history. But considering the way that the twenty-first century would frame their relationship, Emma wasn't sure if there was a tasteful way to describe it.
"Our relationship is none of anyone's concern, Miss Swan," Gold snapped.
"No, I know," Emma said. "Look. Full disclosure here, Sam and Dean are hunters. They hunt down monsters and kill them, and they came here because they know how to recognize magic when they see the signs of it."
"We're very good at it," Dean said smirking, as he settled onto the end of the nearest desk. Without missing a beat, Emma shoved him off.
"Don't lean on my furniture."
Dean pouted outrageously, and Emma tried not to acknowledge the smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Dean might've been to hell and back, but he was still the same idiot that he'd been at age twenty, contrasting with Sam—who had changed so much that Emma barely recognized him.
"Jesus, Em," Dean drawled, dropping sideways into a chair. Every single female in the room, taken (Mary Margaret and Belle) or not (Regina) all stared at him. Emma coughed loudly. There were so many reasons why nobody in this room was allowed to look at her brothers with lust in their eyes. The prospects here were just too creepy.
"So what's this about a curse?" Sam directed the question to Emma and Gabriel, clearly ignoring everyone else present.
Gabriel snorted. "This entire town is full of characters from fairytales."
"What?" Dean said flatly.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Sam protested.
"Why are you telling them!" David protested.
"Charming, just because you want to get all jealous because your abandoned daughter found some family doesn't mean that you can afford to push away useful help," Gabriel drawled. "They're the fucking Winchesters, and that means something. What are you guys up to now?"
"We've got a prophet translating the demon tablet," Sam said.
"You found those old rocks?" Gabriel asked. "It doesn't matter, they don't say anything useful."
"There was something about trials? To close the gates of hell," Dean pointed out.
"That's a hoax. The gates of hell will remain open until Daddy wants them to be closed. And trust me, if you try to push them forward anyway, He will punish you for it. The person who completes those trials will die."
"What if we don't believe you, trickster?"
"Dean, I think he's telling the truth," Sam snapped.
"Is that some sort of metaphor?" Mary Margaret demanded. Sam, Dean and Gabriel all snorted in unison, and Emma barely held back her own derisive noise.
"I wish," Dean muttered. "Hell, a metaphor. Wouldn't that be just wonderful for everyone? I think that Crowley would make a great metaphorical figure."
"Is that a metaphor, or Freudian imagery?" Gabriel jabbed.
"Dude. Gross," Dean commented. "I don't stick my dick in hellspawn, thank you very much."
"Nope, you'll save that for the angel. Unless he's on top," Gabriel sang pointedly.
Sam started laughing so hard that he nearly keeled over, and ducked into a chair to catch his breath. "You have no idea how long I've been saying that!"
"Shut up, Cas and I aren't like that!"
"Right," Emma inserted, unable to keep quiet any longer. "You sleep with guys all the time, what's different about Castiel?"
"I think they were banging in Purgatory," Sam said, still half-wheezing with laughter. "But he won't tell me either way. Or he was sleeping with Benny. But I think that him and Cas were together for at least part of it."
"Benny's a vampire," Dean said.
"That's not an answer. You're avoiding the issue."
"Fine, yes, I slept with Benny. Happy?"
"Not really," Sam drawled. "You sleep with everyone."
"You slept with a vampire? That's a new one," Emma corrected mildly.
"You were in Purgatory?" That was Gabriel.
"Okay, okay, okay. One story at a time," Dean finally yelled. "And enough about my sex life. Jesus Christ, you people are worse than Cas!"
"Oh, is baby brother interested in your sex life, Dean?" Gabriel asked.
"Do you mind?" Dean finally snarled.
"Oh, no, I'm just getting started," Gabriel flung back.
"Guys! Fuck, I forgot about this," Sam yelled.
"What did you forget about?" Emma asked.
"That the majority of mine and Dean's relationship with Gabriel is Dean and Gabriel trading sass over my head while I glare at each of them in turn," Sam muttered. "They flirt a lot, too, which can be kind of disturbing, especially at the Mystery Spot."
"Hey, I didn't remember any of that," Dean said.
Sam rolled his eyes. "No, you just don't give a fuck if someone traps us in a time loop and kills you over a hundred times, as long as they're hot. You're way too easy for your own good, Dean."
"You weren't lying, were you, archangel?" Gold drawled, strategically breaking up the argument and jabbing for answers that he wanted. Everything that this man did was manipulative, and Emma held back her sigh of disgust.
"What about?"
"You really were a nasty piece of work, weren't you? Worse than I've ever been. Worse than she's ever accomplished." He gestured to Regina, who's eyebrow went up in interest. "You said that the first time I found you wandering around my forest, wearing clothing that I'd never seen before, with the nastiest wound that I've ever seen a person recover from without magic and holding a blade more powerful than anything I'd ever encountered."
"You still had a hole in your chest?" Sam asked interestedly.
"Dad fixed my Grace. My vessel needed time to heal—archangel blades can cause quite a bit of damage."
"Lucifer didn't take it? Your sword?"
"It's my blade," Gabriel snapped. "Lucifer could grab it out of my hands and stab me with it, but he can't actually use it in true combat. If you were thinking that he might take it and use it to fight Michael, it loses its power when I'm not wielding it. It isn't like those normal angel toothpicks that you run around using to stab demons. An archangel blade—of which there are four in all of creation—can only be wielded by its archangel."
"God?"
"Daddy needed insurance—he was handing the most powerful weapons ever to exist out, he needed to make sure that just anybody couldn't play around with them. The only two weapons that come close being on par with the archangel blades are Samuel Colt's gun and Cain's knife, which only works in conjunction with the Mark."
Then Gabriel reached into his jacket and produced a short, silver sword. It was unremarkable looking in every way, but Emma could somehow feel the power emanating from it. Gold chuckled. Regina leaned towards it like it had magnetic pull.
"Ah," Gabriel snatched it from her vicinity. "I'm not about to let evil magic practitioners mess with my blade."
"I thought you just said that nobody but you can use it," Regina said interestedly.
"Well, yes," Gabriel said. "But still."
"You're just as bad as Dean with the Impala," Sam muttered.
"It is the most interesting thing that I've ever seen," Gold murmured, eyeing the blade with no small amount of greed in his eyes. "I took it from him, and the moment that it was away from his touch, the power vanished. It was about as useful as a piece of scrap metal, and not even a particularly well-crafted sword."
"Obviously not," Gabriel drawled. "I'm a messenger, not a warrior. I mostly just waved my blade around when the rank and file acted out. And, you know, got stabbed by Lucifer with it."
"Yeah, nice going," Dean muttered. Gabriel glared at him.
"Sam. Did you get Kali out?"
"Yeah," Sam said. "She went off on her own pretty quickly after we were away from the hotel, didn't even stick around to watch that classy message that you left. But when I last saw her, she was fine."
"Thank you."
"You haven't been to see her yet?" Emma asked incredulously. "You've been back for two months, and you haven't bothered to tell her that you're not dead? She's going to fucking run you through again!"
"You know, you're a very judgemental fan," Gabriel said, pouting. "And Kali and I broke up centuries ago, she was with Baldur last time I saw her."
"And from what I remember, she was perfectly willing to let you stick your tongue in her mouth!"
"Are you seriously trying to hook him up with the Destroyer?" Dean said incredulously. "You know, Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction?"
"I thought they were really cute together," Emma said airily, just to forcefully remind her brothers of that Becky girl that was their supposed 'biggest fan'. She wanted to get a look at their faces. Gabriel obviously caught on to what she was doing, and smirked wickedly as Sam and Dean both made horrified faces.
"What I want to know is what any of this has to do with us?" Regina demanded. "You say they're useful, Trickster?" She directed the question towards Gabriel. "Why?"
"Um, because they killed Leviathan? Stabbed me, several times, might I add—and one of them, they even managed to actually catch me by surprise. This one," Gabriel jerked his thumb towards Sam. "He's Lucifer's true vessel, and this one is Michael's," gesturing at Dean. "Destiny had written out their stories a long ass time ago, and they actually had the gall to say no. And they won, too. You are looking at two men who faced the hordes of heaven and hell, and won. They put the devil back in his Cage, and then they took care of my other brother, too, while they were at it."
"Actually, that was Cas," Dean muttered. "If you're referring to Raphael."
"And if you're referring to Michael," Sam added. "That was Lucifer. I jumped, and then we were falling and Michael distracted me so that I lost control again, and Lucifer was the one who actually pulled Michael down—I wouldn't have done that to Adam."
"Okay, okay, whatever. The point," Gabriel eyed Regina. "Is that they killed Azazel, and Lilith and Lucifer. Michael was dragged down because of what they did to Lucifer, and their pet angel killed Raphael. These two are fucking legendary, and they're legendary for refusing to stand down when fate and destiny and the goddamn horsemen of the apocalypse tell them to. They're a huge fucking pain in the ass, and together the two of them have skulls thicker than the Berlin Wall, but they have their uses."
"Gee, thanks. So flattered, you're making me blush," Dean snapped.
"You want to argue with me, Team Free Will?" Gabriel jabbed. "You even managed to talk me into dying for your cause, and I gave up on the righteousness act a long time ago."
Regina leaned forward. "Okay, fine. But what about Henry?"
"Who's Henry?" Dean and Sam asked simultaneously. Emma winced. Gabriel smirked.
"Oh, yes, saviour, do tell them who Henry is."
"My son," Emma muttered.
"Congratulations, you're uncles!" Gabriel added jovially.
"For fuck's sake, Gabriel, shut your damn mouth!" Dean yelled. "Your what?" He demanded of Emma.
"My son," Emma said. "I put him up for adoption when I was eighteen. He," she jerked her head accusingly at Gold, "arranged for him to be adopted by Regina, knowing that he would lead me back here to break the curse ten years later. So now we sort of… share him, it's complicated."
"Who the fuck knocked you up and left, because I'll fucking goddamn kill him," Dean growled viciously. Everyone who had been eyeing him in interest before was abruptly put off, because Dean Winchester was dangerous when he was angry, and any idiot could see it. Emma could recognize that objectively, both of her older brothers were attractive. She could also recognize that even if Dean made you think about sex, you weren't about to think about sex with him with that expression in his eyes, unless you liked your sex lethal.
"A guy," Emma snapped. "It isn't important, he didn't know."
"His name," Dean growled.
"It doesn't matter!" Emma yelled.
"Name, Emma!"
"Neal Cassidy!" Emma snarled, goaded into saying it despite the fact that she wasn't ever planning on crossing paths with Neal again. "Happy?"
"Exceedingly," Sam said, sounding equally dangerous, if somewhat quieter about it. "Gabe?"
Gabriel suddenly looked interested. "Something that you wanted, Sammy?"
"This Neal Cassidy guy, where is he?"
"I have a more interesting question," Gabriel hummed. "Rumple, what's your kid's name?"
"Bae. Baelfire. Why?" Gold looked confused, like his world was tilting on it's axis.
"Weeellll, it might interest you to know that Neal Cassidy and Baelfire are the same person. Which means, children, that your son is the father of your child. Otherwise known as, congratulations, Gold, you're a grandfather."
"What?" Gold, Emma and Regina all yelled at the same time. Most everyone else in the room (Mary Margaret, David, Belle) looked too stunned to react, and Dean and Sam looked like they didn't understand why this was important.
"Christ, this is better than daytime TV."
"But how is that even possible? I didn't even know that you had a son, Gold. And wouldn't he be here?"
"No, Miss Swan," Gold snapped. "The reason that I created this curse in the first place is because it was the only way to get to this world. There was a certain price involved in casting it, a price which I was not willing to pay. So I found someone who was." He gestured to Regina, who looked like her entire universe was being yanked down around her ears. Emma almost felt sorry for her, given the expression of utter hopelessness that had just washed into her eyes. "Then, of course, I had to ensure that I could leave Storybrooke, so I used a drop of your parents' true love in the curse. A built-in failsafe, ensuring that you, their child and the product of true love, would eventually be compelled to return and rescue us. But you know my son."
"If he's right, yes," Emma sighed.
"Of course I'm right," Gabriel said.
"Do you know—do you know where he might be?" Gold asked, sounding almost vulnerable.
"I haven't spoken to Neal in over a decade," Emma muttered. "You know, since he framed me for a bunch of crap that he stole and left me to rot in jail, as well as give birth to his child after promising that we could find somewhere to settle down and actually build a life together."
"You have to tell me something," Gold demanded frantically.
"Tell you what? That I met him when I tried to steal a car, only to find him sleeping in the backseat? That I didn't realize at first that he'd stolen it too? That we wandered aimlessly across the continent running scams and hustling pool and robbing convenience stores and staying in cheap motels? That I was a fucked up kid with abandonment issues and the only home that I'd ever known was the backseat of '67 Chevrolet Impala, and he was a fucked up kid with abandonment issues and he always said that it didn't matter that he'd never had a home, because we were going to build one together. That all he ever told me about his father was that he was a coward? What do you want me to say, Gold?" Emma wasn't shouting, exactly, but her voice was a lot louder than it maybe should have been.
Okay, maybe the whole Neal issue still cut a lot deeper than she was willing to admit.
Mary Margaret stood up abruptly. "Okay, I think that everyone needs to calm down and take a breather," she said, using a tone of voice that probably came in handy with her class full of fifth graders. "Gabriel, where are you getting this information?"
"That Baelfire and Neal Cassidy are the same person? I'm an angel, I know everything about a soul as soon as it comes to my attention. That's why Sam asked me where he was—he knew that as soon as Emma told me his name, I'd know everything about him."
Mary Margaret then turned to Sam, who she had clearly judged to be the more reliable source of Emma's two brothers. "This is accurate information about… angels?"
Sam and Dean both nodded.
"Okay. Mr. Gold, did you have any idea that Baelfire had had a son?" Mary Margaret continued. "I know that you did some manipulation to make Emma the saviour, and have Henry lead her back here, but did you have any idea that Henry was your grandson when you brought him here for Regina to adopt?"
"Of course not! Do you think that I'd have let that heartless bitch anywhere near my grandson if I'd known? Curse or not, I'd have found some other way to get her here," Gold muttered, glaring at Regina.
"Well excuse me, whose fault is it that I'm a heartless bitch to begin with? Tell me, how much of my life did you manipulate? My loveless marriage? Daniel? It all makes so much sense! Every time I tried to change, tried to turn away from the anger, you were right there to talk me right back towards darkness again, weren't you?"
"Oh, no, your majesty," Gold replied, smiling with all teeth. "Daniel was all on your evil mother's hands."
"And as if you didn't manipulate my mother to become what she was, too!"
"Well, I will admit that Cora was, perhaps, directed towards reproducing in the right circumstances that would lead to you, dearie."
"Rumple," Belle snapped. And that was it. Gold shut up.
Yep. Belle was definitely a positive influence. Pity she hadn't been around earlier, because Gold clearly could have used one when he was pulling everybody's strings like a puppet master.
"So let me get this straight," David interjected. "Emma had no idea of who she was or where she was from, and she was wandering around living an aimless life, and she just happened to bump into the only other person from the Enchanted Forest, who travelled here years earlier with several stopovers in other realms. This person happened to be your son, Gold, when she was specifically destined to break your curse. And we actually believe that this was chance , at all? Neal never told you where he was from, and you never thought that there was anything odd about him and the way that he talked about his childhood or anything?" David directed at Emma.
"Actually," Emma said, shrugging. "Sometimes I wondered if maybe he was into hunting. I mean, I was used to living in different motel rooms and making money by the day, but he seemed to take to it a bit too easily. Eventually it occurred to me that most people might find that odd. But hunters… they're pretty fucked up and they don't get out very often. Usually, if you're a hunter, you hunt until you screw up too badly not to come back from the dead. If he had been a hunter, and he had actually gotten out, the last thing that I wanted to do was poke at that with a stick. I decided to leave it alone."
"He's not a hunter I've ever heard of," Sam offered. "Especially not under that name. And usually hunters use their real names or their main alias in the hunting community. And we've all heard of each other."
"Yeah, I've heard some things from the hunting community," Emma shot back. "I haven't been hunting, exactly, but I did the occasional salt and burn when I was bounty hunting. And if you pay attention, well, for some reason, a lot of the gossip seems to be accompanied by the phrase 'fucking Winchesters'. And hunters gossip like old ladies."
Sam at least had the decency to look ashamed. Dean just gave her a shit-eating grin.
"Where is he?" Gold demanded of Gabriel.
"New York," Gabriel replied instantly. "I told you, though, I can't fix whatever makes it so that you can't leave. I don't know what's caused it, but I do know that the magic in this world and the magic in the town are different and completely incompatible. I'm sure that has something to do with it."
"What do you mean?"
"This is supposed to be the land without magic," Gabriel elaborated, "And by your standards, that's even an accurate description. None of your spells, your magical artefacts, your weaknesses, none of them work here. But there is magic here—it just originates from somewhere different. Where magic in your world originates from nature and is neither dark, nor light until you've shaped it and your intentions have determined what you wish to do with it, magic in this world comes from either heaven—celestial power like an angel's blade or a seraph's abilities, naturally light and can only be harnessed by an angel—hell, crossroads deals, demon abilities, naturally dark and can only be harnessed by those who damn themselves to access it—or purgatory, natural abilities of Eve, passed to each of her children in turn."
"So you're saying that they can't work together?"
"I think that they can't exist together," Gabriel answered. "I think that the reason that I could feel my Grace but not use it in your world was because it wasn't compatible with your magic, which saturated the very air. Here, when the curse first broke but before you brought magic to this town, I could feel my entire Grace, but when you brought magic back, it was muted again. My first course of action was to snap myself outside the town line, where the full force of my Grace was available to me. And now, these two have rolled into town—specifically Sam, who has helped even the balance. When a person acts as an angel's vessel, they carry remnants of the Grace inside of them. Sam is carrying—"
"Don't tell me that I've got Lucifer's Grace in me," Sam muttered.
"It won't hurt you," Gabriel assured him. "It's just residual. It might help him find you if he were looking, but I think that won't really be a problem. But you're here, and you've brought Grace with you and that means that it sort of… backs mine up. The reason that you're all trapped in this town is to keep that magic in, because it isn't native to this land."
"So you have full use of your powers here, as do I?" Gold clarified.
"Yes."
"Oh, good. I'd like to see what you can do."
"You have to know, Dark One, that I'll wipe the floor with you."
"I know," Gold assured him. "I'm interested in—"
"How you can manipulate me. But it isn't going to happen. There's nothing that you have that I want, nothing that you can give me. Any and all debts that were incurred in the Enchanted Forest are paid off on both sides. I've been friends with Crowley for years, Gold. I'm not stupid enough to make bargains with creatures like you."
"You know Crowley? Fucking figures."
