Storybrooke

Later that night I was sitting at my window sill reading when the clock started going off. I smiled at it, thinking of what was to come. People would remember. Her curse would break

The next day I woke up and looked out my window again to see the clock had definitely moved again. I got my clothes out for the day and quickly changed before doing my hair and light makeup.

"Where are you going?" I looked in my mirror to see my aunt giving me a look while holding an old book.

"Out. What's that?" I asked her nodding to the book.

"Henry's book. Did you know about this?" she asked me.

"Know about what?" I asked her and she shook her head.

"Nothing." she answered.

"What harm can some fairy tails do?" I asked her before walking out of my room with her behind me. While she went to Henry's room to talk to him I walked outside the house as the clock chimed. It was the beginning of a new day.

I was walking around, looking at everything with a new eye it seemed, when I accidentally bumped into someone.

"Oh my... I am so sorry." the woman told me repeatedly. "I should have been paying more attention to where I was going. I almost laughed at the poor woman.

"I'm alright." I told her with a smile.

"Are you sure?" she asked me.

"Yes, I'm sure." I told her. "We were never really introduced. I'm Clarissa." I held out my hand to her.

"Mary Margret." she said taking my hand.

"I didn't know Regina had any other family before yesterday." she told me.

"It's just her, Henry, and me. My father was never in my life and my mother died long ago." I told her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up that memory." he said to me.

"I don't remember her, so no memories." I told her.

"Well, I should go. I have to get to class." she told me and I waved her off.

Fairy Tale Land - Past

"I shall destroy your happiness, if it's the last thing I do." She turned and headed to the doors, signaling to me to leave as well.

"Hey!" the Queen turned to them and the Prince throw his sword at her, but it dissipates before it hit her and her smoke came to me and made me disappear as well. We appeared back at her castle and the prince's sword stuck into a wall.

"Would you like something to drink?" Grandfather asked us offering my aunt a glass of wine.

"Do I look like I need a drink?" she asked him.

"I was only trying to help." he told her, offering the glass once more. She took the offered glass and then he offered one to me and I took it.

"Thank you." I said, smiling at him as the mirror on the wall behind us spoke.

"Now, that was an awfully big threat. Destroy everyone's happiness? How do you plan on accomplishing that?" the man in the mirror asked her.

"The dark curse." she told him, smirking.

"Are you sure, Your Majesty?" Grandfather asked her.

"But you said you'd never use it." the mirror said.

"You made a deal when you gave away that curse." I reminded her. "You traded it away. She won't be happy to see you."

"Since when do I care about anyone else's happiness but mine? Prepare the carriage. We're going to the forbidden fortress." She ordered and we left.

We rode to a castle is shown in mountains then sat by a fire waiting for our hostess.

"How are you, dear?" Maleficent asked us.

"I'm doing fine." Aunt Regina told her.

"Are you? If it were me, I'd be simply tortured watching that flake of Snow so happy. Weren't you about the same age when you were to be married? Before she ruined it all. Yes, you were." Maleficent said with an evil smile.

"Yes, it was about the same age you were when that Sleeping Beauty got the best of you, my dear Maleficent." Regina told her, copying her smile.

"I soldiered on, as you will too. Hopefully." Maleficent told her.

"Enough games. You know why I'm here. I need my curse back." Regina told her.

"It's not yours anymore. A deal's a deal. I traded you my sleeping curse." Maleficent reminded her.

"Which failed. Undone by a simple kiss. Now please, return what's mine." Regina ordered.

"The dark curse? Really? You must know that not even its unholy power can bring your loved one back from the dead. Have you considered a pet?" Maleficent asked, petting the unicorn beside her. "They can be quite comforting."

"The only comfort for me is Snow White's suffering." Regina told her.

"Well, it's her wedding night. I doubt she's suffering right now." Maleficent said with a smile.

"I need that curse. I know you keep it hidden in the orb above your staff." Maleficent looked to the orb on her staff before looking back at us.

"Hidden for the good of all, old friend. Whoever created that monstrosity, makes the two of us look positively…moral. Who did give it to you?" Maleficent asked her. Regina glanced at me quickly before looking back to her friend.

"Where I got it's none of your concern. Hand it back." Regina ordered her.

"Must we do this?" Maleficent asked her.

"Alas, we must." The Evil Queen used her magic to control the fire in the fireplace. She aimed it at Maleficent, but she jumped to a back corner of the room and deflected it. The Evil Queen then summoned multiple weapons in the room and aims it at Maleficent. The unicorn neighed and she turned the weapons on Maleficent's pet unicorn, an evil smile on her face.

"No!" Maleficent jumped in front of her pet and, again, deflected the Queen's attack. While distracted, the Evil Queen caused the chandelier to fall on top of Maleficent, and wrap around her trapping her. Maleficent dropped her staff and Regina went to collect it.

"Love is weakness, Maleficent. I thought you knew that?" Regina told her and I looked down. Why was I even here if my aunt claimed to love no one?

"If you're going to kill me, kill me!" Maleficent ordered her.

"Why would I do that?" Regina asked her, rubbing her hand on the orb before looking at her. "You're my only friend." The Evil Queen shattered the orb on the staff and took the curse scroll.

"Don't do this. This…curse. There are lines even we shouldn't cross. All power comes with a price. Enacting it will take a terrible toll. It will leave an emptiness inside you. A void you will never be able to fill." Maleficent told her.

"So be it." Regina said before grabbing my arm pulling me with her.

I woke up from my slumber to see my grandfather sitting next to me. After we'd returned from Maleficent's castle it had been late and I'd fallen asleep in my room. Aunt Regina had put me on bed rest unless I was with her so she could keep an eye on me.

"Grandfather?" I called to him.

"Clarissa." he said smiling at me.

"When did you get home?" I asked him. He and Aunt Regina had gone to gather the last ingredient of her curse.

"We gathered everyone and took a hair from all of them. She added them into the rest of the items for the curse removed the steads heart from the box and threw it into the fire." he told me. I sat up slowly, pain racking my body.

"Is the curse coming?" I asked him.

"No, she's gone to see Rumpelstiltskin for answers." he said and I looked at him confused.

"Who's Rumpelstiltskin?" I asked him and he paled.

Storybrooke

I sat on a bench next to a gnome in my aunt's garden waiting for the time of my appointment. The pain had resurfaced again and Aunt Regina immediately called the hospital and scheduled an appointment for me to see Dr. Whale. I watched as Sydney walked up to her with a paper as she picked apples before revealing it to her. The front page was Emma Swan.

"The Mirror strikes again!" Sidney told her.

"You're late." Regina said.

"Sorry. I wanted to bring you the latest edition. I assure you it's one of my better hatchet jobs." Sidney told her, proud of himself.

"That's not what I asked for. What'd you find out about her?"Aunt Regina asked.

"Well, the truth be told, there wasn't much. She spent a lot of time in foster homes. Sh-she got into some trouble when she was a kid, ah, but the details are locked up pretty tight. Since then, she's clean. Bounced around all over. The only thing I really learned was that she doesn't like to sit still." Sidney said.

"Well, that appears to have changed." Regina told him.

"It could be because she has a reason to stay now." I told her and she glared at me.

"D-did you know that, um, she had Henry while she was in Phoenix? Huh, how'd he wind up here in Maine?" Sidney asked and I looked at Regina, the question also on my mind.

"So, if I'm understanding you correctly, you found nothing of value. Which means you have no value, Sidney. Do you know what I do with things that hold no value to me? I throw them away." She warned him.

"I-I'll keep looking." he told her scared.

I sat on a bed as Dr. Whale inspected me.

"I don't see anything wrong with you." he told me grabbed his stethoscope.

"You never do." I told him.

"We've been looking into this disease for years now. Are you sure you didn't do anything that could be the cause of this when you were a child?" he asked me.

"Yes. Nothing happened." I told him going over my memories.

"Are you sure?" he asked again. "You didn't fall, or choke on anything?" I gave him a look.

"No. I didn't fall or choke or anything like that." I told him grasping onto my chest where my heart was. That was always where the pain started.

"So how did you get hurt your back?" he asked me. With Aunt Regina here when I was younger he never asked. I touched my shoulder and looked down at my lap, silent. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

"No you shouldn't have." I got off the bed and left. I wasn't about to tell that story to him.

I laid in my bed after my appointment.

"Clarissa." I looked up to see Aunt Regina with a smile on her face. "How was your appointment?"

"Same as always." I told her.

"He still doesn't know what's wrong?" she asked.

"He never will." I told her.

"Clarissa, we will find out what's happening. I swear." she told me grabbing my hand.

"And what will hat help? So we'll find out what's causes the pains but then what? What will that help?"

"It will help, I promise." she told me.

I was sitting in my bed reading a book when my door opened again. I sighed thinking it was my aunt but was surprised to see Henry.

"Henry? What are you doing here?" I asked him as he joined me in the bed.

"My mom told me you were resting after your appointment. Did you have another attack?" he asked me and I shook my head.

"No, nothing like that." I told him. It was then that I noticed the book he carried. "What's that?" Henry looked down at his book before looking back at me.

"Just a bunch of stories." he told me.

"Can I see?" I asked him. He thought about it for a moment before giving it to me. I set my other book aside and looked through the pictures and glanced at the stories inside of it. Fairy tales? "Where did you get this?" I asked, stopping at a picture of two women. One was older and in black and the other was a young woman in a rich purple dress.

"It's the past." he told me.

"The past?" I asked.

"Yeah, everyone's past is in here. This entire town has been cursed for 28 years by the Evil Queen. My mom's the only one can break the curse." Henry told me.

"Aunt Regina's the only one who can break a curse?" I asked him.

"No, she's the Evil Queen. My mom Emma's the only one who can. She's the child of Snow White and Prince Charming." he told me and I smiled.

"Is that so?" I asked him, flipping through the book again. I stopped at another picture. It had the same young woman but this time a man was in the picture with her. I touched the picture gently and smiled. "Is everyone in town in this book?" I asked him.

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"Then who am I?" I asked him.

"That's an easy one, you're Princess Clarissa. You gave yourself to Rumpelstiltskin to save your family and friends from the Ogre Wars." he said and I smirked.

"Family and friends, huh?" I asked.

"Well, mostly your sister." he corrected.

"Do you know who he is? Who Rumpelstiltskin is in this world?" I asked him.

"No, but I'm still working out who's really who in town." he told me and I nodded at him.

"So, why is my name the same as some princess in your book?" I asked him. "I guess that everyone has a different name here compared to there, so why's mine the same?"

"I don't know. I guess the Evil Queen didn't want to change too many things for people she was close to." he told me.

"I guess." I said looking down at the picture in the book.

Fairy Tale Land - Past

"Grandfather, who is Rumpelstiltskin?" I asked him again.

"An evil man, Clarissa. He's locked away so he can't hurt anyone else." Grandfather told me.

"Grandfather. They call Aunt Regina the Evil Queen. Did Rumpelstiltskin train her?" I asked him.

"No." he told me, but something about the way he said it made it seem like it was a lie.

"Grandfather..."

"Clarissa I must go. I have duties I must attend to before the queen returns." he said while walking away.

"But Grandfather..."

"Not now." he then walked out of my site and I sighed. I was alone again. I suddenly felt the pain again. My hand flew to my chest and I tried to keep in the screams this time, but this one was different. Why? What was happening to me? Finally I couldn't contain it anymore. I had to release this pain! Dark spots swam across my vision as I screamed until finally, I blacked out.

"Clarissa! Clarissa! Wake up, sweetie!" my aunt called to me. I painfully opened my eyes to see my aunt and grandfather.

"Oh, thank god!" my grandfather sighed in relief. I sat up in bed and looked at them.

"What happened?" my aunt asked me.

"I don't know. I was in pain then nothing. I must have blacked out." I told them.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she asked me. A sudden pain slammed into my head and I held my head as flashes came to my mind. When they were gone I looked to my aunt, shocked.

"What did you do to me?" I whispered.

"Clarissa?"

"What did you do to me?!" I shouted as tears were coming down my face and no matter how I tried I couldn't stop them.

"How? How do you remember?" they both looked shocked at me.

"How dare you make me forget him!" I shouted at her.

"It was for your own good." she told me. "You were dying."

"What do you think I'm doing now?" I asked her. "I'm still dying, slowly. There is nothing that we control that will stop this." I told her.

"As soon as we go to the new land, we'll feel better. I promise." she told me and I scoffed at her words.

"Are you really that stupid?" I asked her. "All that will happen is that I wont remember why I'm in pain.

"How do you know that?" she asked me.

"I lived with him for many years, Aunt Regina. I know how he thinks better than you do." I told her.

"He didn't give me this curse until after he abandoned you. How would you know what he was thinking?" she asked me. "What would you know anything about it?"

"He was creating it while I was there!" I told her and they looked stunned.

"I took your memory of him, you shouldn't be able to remember him at all let alone be dying because of him."

"It's this sickness." I whispered putting my hand to my chest. It's because of him. That's why I remember." I looked up at her as if I'd never seen her before. "It's because of you, because you took me away. You poisoned what I had! Can you allow no one happiness just because you never were allowed your own?!" I asked her.

"How dare you!" she yelled at me.

"No, how dare you." I said before walking out of my room.

"I'd like to start by apologizing, Miss Swan." I heard my aunt say when Henry and I had walked to the door of her office. Why was Emma here"

"What?" Emma asked her.

"I just have to accept the reality that you want to be here." Aunt Regina said to her.

"That's right. I do." Emma told her.

"And that you're here to take my son from me." Aunt Regina finished.

"Okay, let's be clear. I have no intention of taking him from anyone." Emma told her.

"Well, then, what are you doing here?" Aunt Regina asked her.

"I know I'm not a mother. I think that's pretty self-evident. But I did have him. And I can't help that he got in my head and I want to make sure he's okay. The more you try to push me out, the more I want to be here. Especially after seeing how troubled he is." Emma told her.

"You think he's troubled?" Aunt Regina asked Emma.

"Well, he's in therapy. And I only got through a couple of pages of his shrink's notes before you had me arrested. But putting all that aside. He thinks everyone in this town is a fairy tale character." Emma said.

"And you don't?" Aunt Regina asked her.

"How can I? The poor kid can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality and it's only getting worse. It's crazy." Emma said.

"You think I'm crazy?" Henry asked her. Emma jumped off the white couch she'd been sitting on and turned to us.

"Henry…" she started saying but he ran away. "How long have you two been there?" she asked me.

"Long enough." I told her, glaring.

"You knew they would be here." Emma said turning to Aunt Regina.

"Did I know that my son and my niece comes to my office every Thursday at precisely 5:00 pm so I can take him for dinner before his therapy session? Of course I did. I'm his mother and her aunt. Your move." Aunt Regina told her.

"You have no soul. How in the hell did you get like this?" Emma asked her.

Fairy Tale Land - Past

"What happened? Did you get your answer? What's going on? Your Majesty? Your Majesty!" I heard the man in the mirror asked her. I looked up to see aunt Regina walking into the room where Grandfather was lighting candles and I was reading a book.

"Did Rumpelstiltskin tell you what you needed to know?" Grandfather asked her.

"Yes." she answered.

"And?" I asked her, wanting her to elaborate.

"I'm not sure I should say. I'm conflicted." she told us.

"How bad is it? Maybe we can help." I told her. I didn't know if I wanted to really help her, but when she enacted the curse I would go find Rumpelstiltskin.

"I have to cut out the heart of the thing I love most." she told us.

"Me?" Grandfather asked her.

"Daddy, I don't know what to do." she told him.

"My dear, please. You don't have to do this." he told her.

"I have to do something." she said.

"Then move past this. I know this may sound self-serving, but you don't need to enact the curse." I felt my heart stop. But if she didn't enact the curse then...

"But I can't keep living like this. What Snow did to me, what she took from me? It's eating me alive, Daddy. Her very existence mocks me. She must be punished." Aunt Regina told him.

"But, if the price is a hole that will never be filled, why do it? Stop worrying about Snow White and start over. We can have a new life. The three of us." Grandfather told her while looking between the two of us.

"But what kind of life? All I've worked for, all I've built, would be gone. My power will disappear. They already think I'm nothing." Aunt Regina told him.

"Power is seductive. But so is love. You can have that again." Grandfather told her.

"I just want to be happy." Aunt Regina told him.

"You can be. Of this I'm sure. But I believe, given the chance, we can find happiness. Together. But the choice is yours." he told her.

"I think you're right. I can be happy." she told him. Suddenly he jumped and stiffened, looking at her in shock. "…Just not here." He fell and I saw her holding a heart. "I'm sorry…"

"Grandfather!"

Storybrooke

"Why are the two of you having this contest?" I asked her.

"What contest?" she asked me. I sighed and sat down on the couch where Emma had been.

"You understand that Henry will hate you forever if you force her away." I told her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked me, getting angry.

"You are playing chess with Henry's birth mother! What makes you think you will win?" I asked her.

"I'm his mother." she said to me.

"So is she." I said and she glared at me. "She gave birth to him, that makes her his mother. You raised him, that makes you his mother. It's a bond you three will never be able to break."

"That woman is not his mother! She never will be!" Aunt Regina yelled at me.

"What makes you say that?" I asked her.

"I have done everything for him. I've devoted my life to him and this town." she told me.

"This is hurting him! You are hurting your son by fighting with Emma this way, and if you continue this you might lose him." I told her before getting up and walking back home.