A/N: This story will be updated whenever the next chapter is ready. I plan on it never going without an update for more than a week, though I'm kinda shit at sticking to plans.
Riley was introduced to people she'd read about in fairy tales and in government created files. There were Emma's parents, Snow White and Prince Charming, who went by Snow and David. They were so different from who she had imagined Emma's parents to be. She had figured anyone who dropped a baby on the side of a road would have to be insane or on some serious drugs, and had thought it a miracle that Emma turned out so great. But they were everything Emma had ever dreamed they would be, and for that, Riley was grateful.
She met Emma's son, which was almost as weird as meeting her parents. Henry was fifteen, with brown hair and eyes that held a bit more green than Emma's did. He reminded Riley of Emma when she was younger. Both seemed to have seen more than they should have and had a stubborn spark in their eyes. And they both radiated kindness.
Henry's other mother, the not-so-evil Evil Queen, was what Riley expected a monarch to be: strong, even in the face of great tragedy. The pain was obvious in her dark eyes, and yet she got out of bed, applied her makeup, and strived to be the woman her son needed her to be.
The Wicked Witch was not Elphaba, and had apparently, until very recently, been very much like the way she was portrayed in The Wizard of Oz. And she was the Evil Queen's sister; the two shared an also ex-evil mother. Her daughter was also the daughter of the man who had died, and Riley was told that it was a long story.
There was also Little Red Riding Hood, who was called Ruby and was in True Love or whatever with Dorothy, who turned out to be pretty badass. Ruby was the wolf in the story, though she hadn't eaten her grandmother, a woman who seemed like she could kick the ass of any wolf that tried to do so anyway.
Riley was introduced to the dwarves and the fairies and all the other fairytale characters she'd heard of as a kid. She met Rumpelstiltskin, the beast to Belle's beauty, and the father of Henry's dad, who was dead. She was told by Henry of Mulan and Merida, both badass soldier-types he thought Riley might relate to.
Only one relevant person was not talked about: the man who Emma had gone to Hell and back for. Henry promised to fill her in when he got a chance, but no such chance had presented itself yet. They were too busy preparing a plan.
"You can't fight them." Riley had been saying this since they had first began discussing what to do, but there was too much goddam hope in this town. "They can destroy the entire East Coast with one bomb."
"But they won't destroy the entire East Coast," Emma argued. "They want to destroy one town without attracting too much attention. They have to be more strategic than that."
"Yes, and they have the best strategists in the world on their side. We have a bunch of fictional characters who underestimate the abilities of their opponent."
"Fictional?" Regina's lips pursed in disapproval. "I assure you I am very much real. As is my magic, which you seem to underestimate."
"Parlor tricks won't be able to stand up against the might of the fucking US army. Not to mention the Navy, as you had the great foresight to put this godforsaken town right on the fucking ocean."
"I can do much more than parlor tricks, Colonel Thompson. And I did not make the curse; I simply cast it."
"I'm not a colonel anymore. Stop calling me that."
Henry released a frustrated sigh, leaned forward with his elbows on the table. "Look, fighting isn't going to get us anywhere. Riley, you know their army inside and out; you know their weaknesses and their strengths. And my mom, she commanded her own army back in the Enchanted Forest. If you work together, we might be able to fight them."
Riley admired his optimism, she really did, but he was wrong. "We could fight them, sure, but there's no chance in hell we'd win. Like you said, I know their army, and what they've got - it makes what we've got look pathetic. Fighting would be suicide."
Archie - Jiminy Cricket, she'd been told - spoke up. "Maybe we don't have to fight or run. If we could talk to them and show them that we're not a threat" -
"They have too much to lose if they trust you," Riley interrupted, intent on getting them to see her point. It was the only way she could keep Emma safe. "It doesn't matter how harmless you seem. Kids seem harmless, too, until they blow you up. The government knows that; they've learned that lesson the hard way. They won't risk it."
For the first time since they sat down, everyone was silent. They were sat around a table in the town hall, Snow and David having called their war council to another meeting regarding what the hell they were to do. The council included Grumpy, the Blue Fairy, Archie, Granny, and the new additions of Riley, Emma, Regina, and Henry. It had been a week since Riley's arrival and an hour since the meeting began, and Riley was sure she was past the point of crazy by now. Spending all week with tougher versions of fairytale characters who thought they could defeat the US military in battle was taking its toll on her.
"Well," Snow said finally, "going home is not an option. The land was destroyed by the curse."
"Right," David agreed. "Which leaves us with no choice. We have to fight, even if we're fighting a losing battle." His solemn gaze found Riley's. "I hope you'll help us."
Riley swallowed the rising bile in her throat, gave a tight nod. As much as she hated it, she would do as they asked of her. Not only did she have nowhere else to go now that she was a deserter, but she couldn't leave Emma to die. It would be so much worse than her previous abandonment.
"We need to convince Rumple to work with us," Regina stated. "We need all the help we can get, and he is the most powerful person in town now."
"I'll talk to him," Emma volunteered. "And Belle."
Working out had become a sort of therapy for Riley since enlisting. She'd never forget what Sergeant Wells had told her once when he'd come across her having a panic attack - If you want to be strong mentally, it helps to be strong physically. He'd squatted down next to her, put his hand on her shoulder, and as she'd stared into his warm, brown eyes, she'd wondered if this is what she'd missed out on as a kid. Was this what it felt like to have a father who cared about you?
Wells was a good guy, and Riley thought of him often. She thought of the place she'd been in when she met him and of how he'd helped her to be a better person. He was the reason she became strong enough to make decisions with others in mind, and so, indirectly, he was the reason she was here in Storybrooke, trying to make right what she'd done to a kid a long, long time ago.
As her mind began to drift to other, darker things, Riley attempted to shift her focus to the burn in her abdomen as she performed sit-ups. The army had taught her, among other things, to discipline her mind. It had taught her both the power of thought and the importance of having power over thought. In waking hours, she was very good at avoiding painful thoughts. Though, being so close to the kid, all grown up now and with a family other than Riley, the task of avoiding such thoughts was fast becoming insurmountable.
And it was impossible - always, always impossible - to rid herself of the nightmares. The most she'd been able to do with those was stop them from causing her to wake up screaming, which admittedly was a great accomplishment. Still, it did not ease the dread she felt at the idea of sleeping.
Shaking these thoughts away, Riley pondered how she could get these characters to believe her when she said they had no chance of defeating this enemy. She ignored the pang she felt in her chest whenever she remembered that the very institution - the very people - who had saved her when she was a teenager were now the people she was meant to fight. She also ignored the part of her that wondered if she was only so unwilling to fight them because she did not want to kill or be killed by her friends.
She went over battle strategies in her head. With the limited resources and soldiers, did they stand a chance? It was difficult to imagine this would not be a small-scale version of the Civil War, that they were the South and they would lose. However, there were plenty of examples where largely outnumbered forces defeated stronger opponents.
They would have to start training immediately. If magic didn't work, the citizens of Storybrooke would need to know how to defend themselves against trained soldiers - that is, if they were lucky enough to not just be gunned down first. Was there a way to disable soldiers' weapons once they crossed the town line? If there was, shouldn't there be a way to just keep the soldiers from entering the town in the first place?
But Riley knew that, even if there was, the government would not give up. If it took one hundred years, they'd find a way to get in. And by then their army would have grown even stronger.
The town was essentially on borrowed time, Riley mused. Every moment they were not being attacked was a moment gifted to them by God.
Eventually, Riley grew tired. She had completed one-hundred sit-ups, the same number of push-ups, two ten-minute planks, too many Russian twists to count, and more. Exhaustion swept through her. She barely made it into the bed of the inn she was staying at before she fell into a fitful sleep, in which she relived the most agonizing moments of her life.
2006
She'd been captured. Fucking captured! It was maddening. Where was the pill she could swallow to end this?
Later they'd continue with the waterboarding, she was sure, but for now, she sat tied to a chair while her skin literally boiled beneath the sun's hot glare. They'd taken her jacket, leaving her in nothing but a tank top. Then they'd left her out to bake.
It had been hours. She could feel her sanity begin to slip. In an effort to remain not only sane but conscious, she recited poetry, speeches, even the entire United States Constitution in her head. She replayed songs, imagined how to play them on piano, then guitar, drums. A smirk found its way to her lips as she thought of Beethoven on drums. Once she grew bored of music, she created math problems and solved them, then completed proofs on them. She even went back to check her work, because it mattered that she got them right; Riley Thompson did not do wrong. She did not make mistakes. If she were to begin to do so now, it would be a testament to how little reality she still held onto. It would be a win for the douchebag terrorists.
Such thoughts not only kept her brain from becoming mush, but they also kept her distracted. If she focused on the pain she was in and how she had a better chance of winning the lottery than escaping, she would cry. They would see her as weak; they would know how close they were to breaking her.
And the truth is, all she wanted to do was tell them what they wanted to know. She wasn't naive enough to believe them when they said they'd return her to the Americans; she knew they would kill her. Truthfully, she would welcome death with open arms if they were to offer it to her. But whenever she nearly caved, she'd remind herself that the information they wanted from her could be used to plan an attack on the states, and she'd imagine Emma. And she'd know that there was nothing she wouldn't do to keep that kid - that adult, she reminded herself - safe.
Riley mentally scoffed at her inability to see Emma as anything other than that twelve year old kid who'd needed her. Emma was an adult now, probably had kids and a husband and a white picket fence. Or she was in prison, as so many former kids of the system were. Either way, she wasn't little anymore, and Riley really needed to move on.
Thinking of her situation brought to mind a stanza of a well-loved poem.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep
It was almost funny - right now it seemed hilarious to Riley - how she'd spent most of her life fighting to survive and now she longed for death. No doubt her father would be laughing at her from his spot in Hell. Looking back on things, it was startlingly obvious how all of this was his fault. She wouldn't be here if it weren't for him, after all. He would be proud, she supposed, that he was still able to inflict pain on her even after death.
Voices carried through the background of her awareness. She paid them little mind, as they spoke a language she didn't know. She hated the sound of them anyway. They were probably discussing new ways to torture her or saying something vulgar about women. That's what she always told herself, at least, because she couldn't think of them as human. It would break her.
Suddenly her blindfold was ripped away. The abrupt exposure to sunlight after days of darkness gave her a migraine, worse than the one she'd already been nursing. Something wet trickled from her nose. Everything was coming in too-bright flashes. Was she having a seizure? She wished she was blind.
A man was screaming at her, unintelligible words drenched in panic. He paused, and when she remained silent, something heavy slammed into the side of her face. The chair tipped over and she toppled with it. Her skin burned as it collided with the scalding hot sand. Her hair was yanked and suddenly she was upright again.
"I don't speak that shit," she mumbled, attempting to glare at her abuser through closed eyes.
More shouting, then an explosion. Then it all went black. Her last conscious thought was, Thank God.
