Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.
CHAPTER THREE
SOULMATES
"You're my soulmate?"
Neal scowled. "Wow, when you say it like that-"
"I didn't mean-"
"Yeah, you did," he cut her off, his expression cool. "And you know what? I get it. I really do. Cause I was stoked about meeting my soulmate until I asked Janet to show me a picture of her and realized someone must have majorly forked up, because there's no way you could be here."
Emma shut the door and sputtered, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that along with being able to view your life," Neal shot back, "you can view your loved ones lives that you left behind. And since I was the first one to show up in this neighborhood, even with the whole time being irrelevant thing so everyone and their soulmate shows up at the same time, besides trying to get you to get your head out of Hook's ash and not drag our kid to Fake Sort of Hell, I did have enough of time to flip through a wonderful clipfest of all the shirt you did, which boils down to being a deadbeat of a mother to the kid you had because all you seemed to think about twenty-four-seven was when and how and where to fork my stepfather and fate willing you wouldn't get impaled by some villain so you could impale yourself on his heroic sword and be an incubator for his babies, because poor widdle Hooky-poo deserves so much happiness!"
"That's not at all how it was!" Emma snapped.
Neal scoffed. "Yeah, you know what, Emma? Fork you. I still loved you, but I was finally gonna get my Tallahassee, only my still loving you got in the way of that, cause I turn on the TV and find out you turned into some lame-ass love-sick Dark One over a guy you just met and barely knew who told you to your face he spent the last three hundred years raping women, had cold-blooded murdered at least five people, and then you helped cover up one of his murders by brainwashing your entire family and breaking Henry's heart before dragging them all to The Underworld to try and split your heart with a rotting corpse, but thanks to Zeus being all happy and shirt that Henry fixed his stolen quill, you got your forkboy back and proceeded to rewrite everything we once had to make your entire existence about some happy ending bullshirt he somehow deserved after giving up his murdering and raping and handing me over to Pan out of spite because I wasn't cool with him having banged my mom and left me to think she'd been raped to death, murdering the most powerful wizard of all time, and trying to kill your entire family, including Henry. But you couldn't forgive me for trusting August or not answering a forking post card?"
Neal scoffed. "Again. Fork you. You betrayed everything I once loved about you for a sociopath and then you died and left our kid with a bunch of forking selfish psychos! I did what I had to do, what I was told was right, to reunite you with your family, and you got it torn apart again, and all to be the trophy wife of some jerk who's harder to kill than a cockroach. Well, good for you, Emma. Now get the fork outta my car!"
Emma did. She shut the door and watched Neal speed off, tires squealing. She didn't even realize she was crying until Janet appeared with a box of tissues.
"Can you take me to my ugly-ash home?"
Janet did so, bringing them to the kitchen where Emma immediately poured herself another drink from the bottle.
"I really forked up, Janet," she sniffed. "My kid... he's all alone. I mean, he has my family, but they're kind of idiots and psychos. And I kind of neglected him. A lot. After not even being in his life for ten years. Is it considered bad to move in with your boyfriend who routinely belittles your kid because he probably hates him for being a reminder of your first love?"
"That's a negative two hundred fifty seven point three six points," Janet relayed.
"I'm a horrible person."
"That doesn't quite count as 'horrible'."
"I didn't mention that he'd tried to kill my entire family a few days before that and I started dating him even though he all but outright said he date raped women for three hundred years and I knew he was always trying to get me drunk to sleep with me, and he's murdered at least a half dozen innocent people and helped a horrible woman commit the mass murder of at least two hundred people. And left me and my mom to starve to death. I also kinda got him brought back from the dead. After killing him. After turning him into the Dark One and covering up his murdering Merlin. Who was black. And I'm also... I was... a Sheriff."
"Oh," said Janet, "then yes, you are a horrible person. You shouldn't be here."
"I know," moped Emma. "And I'm ruining Neal's Tallahassee. He should have his soulmate here, but instead he got me. Again. I screwed up his life and now I'm screwing up his Afterlife. How did this happen?"
"I can't say. My programming is only to help acclimate and assist residents of this neighborhood. I am not involved in the actual process of selecting residents."
"You really can't tell anyone though, right?"
"As I said, anything you tell me is in confidence."
Emma nodded and took a drink. But what about Neal?
"Thanks, Janet," she sighed. "That's... that's it."
Janet nodded curtly and disappeared. Emma took her glass and the bottle to the couch and turned on the TV and brought up the menu of events of her so-called heroic memories that got her here.
Some savior vanquished a witch and saved an orphanage full of children. Some savior stopped a magical tsunami from killing thousands of people and threw in a dungeon the witch who'd summoned it. Some savior spent her free time returning stolen hearts to the people they were taken from. Some savior gave a rousing speech about the difference between charity and justice, and holding villains accountable for their horrific crimes... and that was definitely not her.
When Emma changed to the menu that would show her loved ones since her death, though, it was surprisingly correct. It was her family.
Time really did seem to be relative, because more had passed than she'd thought back on 'Earth'. She watched her funeral - closed casket, thankfully - and cringed as Killian gave a forty-five minute eulogy that was ninety-percent about his feelings. Of course her mother blathered on about hope and things happening for a reason. And Henry made his eulogy all analogies to stories in that book and how she would live on as a legend, blah blah blah. Then regular people got up to talk, recounting times she'd saved them, including Cinderella.
People did like me, Emma told herself. I did do good things.
Then Grumpy got up, clearly a drunk, scowling and glaring at everyone and declared:
"Gimme a break! You're all a bunch of hypocrites and liars with your royal privilege! Emma wasn't a good person! And she was a shirty savior! She didn't give a crap about anyone but herself, not since she broke the Curse, got back from The Enchanted Forest, and had gone from ex-criminal newly-minted-Sheriff to whiny, petty, entitled little princess who ran terrified into Captain Herpes arms if a mouse farted!
"Sweetheart," he scoffed at Cinderella, "she only saved your dumb nearly-got-yourself-killed ash because her boyfriend batted his eyes at your kid and made her womb all tingly. The only happy ending that bench cared about was his," Grumpy pointed to Hook. "As if a three hundred year old murderer who brags about getting women drunk to bang them, handed over little kids to Peter Pan to keep his crew of perverts safe, and killed his own father to orphan his ten year old brother deserves any kind of future.
"f Emma Swan was the savior we deserved, this jackass and half the town would be locked up. Instead that hypocritical cant only arrested the bad guys when it was conveiennt to making sure that serial posey-grabber was happy."
Grumpy scoffed, "I'm glad she's dead. And it's not my fault. It's yours," he pointed to her parents, Regina, and Hook, even Henry, "for indoctrinating a once good, just woman into your spoiled, entitled family of hypocritical asholes. Because before she believed she was the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, before she was The Savior, she helped us little guys and told the big bads, people like you," he pointed to Regina, Hook, and Zelena, "to fork off, because sociopaths who murder and rape with impunity don't get second chances.
"But you ruined her," he continued. "After breaking the Curse Emma didn't do jack shirt for any of us other than put us in repeated danger to save your not-sorry-for-anything ashes. She turned Dopey into a tree, and did she bother turning him back? No! She didn't even remember he existed until she stormed into my therapy session and demanded my time that I paid for to bench and moan about her love life problems! I'm sorry, but my problems were a hell of a lot more important than that stupid bench fretting about how her savior duties were ruining her dream of letting the rapist she dated for two months and nearly killed us all to drag out of Hell move into her creepy as fork murder house because he deserved puppies and kittens and rainbows and unicorn queefs for that one time he didn't murder or rape someone he could have because he was distracted by her ash bent over in painted-on jeans! And I probably wouldn't have fallen off the wagon if that bench hadn't butted in on my appointment time again last week to make excuses for her boytoy almost giving her herpes because he wasn't gonna tell her if she hadn't listened to Dr. Whale's voicemail, but somehow that wasn't his fault, the misunderstood little orphaned puppy! Ugh!
"And, yeah, I bugged Archie's office with a nanny cam, but getting therapy by proxy was the only forking way I could ever get it thanks to that selfish cant!"
Grumpy scoffed in disgust before declaring, "And you know what? I've attended dozens of funerals of regular people who died in magical catastrophes Emma Swan and her selfish ashole family caused. And not once did any of them show up. Not once did any of them donate to funds for their families or even bring over a forking casserole. There's no justice for normal people, no orange jump suits for their villain bootycalls and BFFs. Because none of them give two forks about us.
"So, yeah, The Savior is dead and we should be throwing a party and singing 'Ding Dong the Dumb Blonde Bench is Dead' cause she died as she lived: shirking her duties to this community to boink a sexual predator who tried to murder all of us and never contributed one positive thing to this town!
"It's time to take back Storybrooke from the entitled, oblivious, sanctimonious piece of shirt royals who have been getting in the way of our happy endings! Who's with me?"
Emma watched in horrified dismay but also kind of fascination as the "regular people" jumped up cheering support for Grumpy and following him out of the chapel, some of them spitting at her parents. Even Archie was on the Dwarf's side.
"I'm sorry, but Grumpy makes a point. Your daughter really was my worst patient. She interrupted countless session like an entitled jerk and was very, well, intimidating about it. I felt like I couldn't refuse her, even though she was taking away time from my other patients who actually paid their bills and listened to my advice. Which Emma never did. She either stormed off after telling me my advice was stupid or chose to interpret my advice to mean whatever self-serving, self-destructive nonsense she wanted it to mean. I wanted her to get help for her actual PTSD and work on healing herself, reconciling the well-adjusted and good person I first met with the weight of savior responsibilities. But instead she wanted to escape into a fantasy world and immerse herself in an emotionally abusive relationship just to feel like she was worshiped and never have to face her mistakes and the consequences of selfish actions.
"I believe she was a good person once, but she was so insecure," Archie continued with an accusatory look, "and you both... you were such terrible parents, leaders, and heroes that having no role models for any of those growing up, Emma emulated your terrible example and brainwashed herself into your entitled version of happiness like a child would do, because she was clearly stuck in arrested development since she was a teenager.
"And as for us little guys? You expect us to jump up and follow you and defend you, but when we need help, you're never there. You barely remember we exist at all. We'll, I'm done with that. I may have made some horrible mistakes in my life, but getting cursed made me realize I have to take accountability to actually redeem myself for those selfish actions. Clearly, the same can't be said for any of you!
"Come on Pongo!" Archie called to the dog who was urinating on her coffin...
Emma was more than a little disheartened, but it only got worse when she watched the reception lunch at Granny's, attended by only her family minus Gold. Hook moped and sniffled and needed reassurances that he would be okay (seeming to have not even heard Grumpy's accusations) and Emma's parents provided that while Regina just rolled her eyes and drank a bottle of wine while Zelena whined that her piano she wanted to curse everyone to break out into song until their vocal cords ruptured was ruined - and somehow even though it was her spell it wasn't her fault that Emma had died!
And after only a few minutes, Belle stood up, scowling at Hook.
"Grumpy's right. You know, I think maybe Emma was using some subconscious savior magic to influence our feelings, because why would I put any kind of trust in any of you? In a woman who imprisoned me, a man who shot me, the rest of you who never once came to my aide. You left me in The Underworld! You didn't try to wake me up. And, you know what? Archie's right! Trying to make you understand what horrible people you are won't make a difference. You'll just twist it into some lesson the universe threw at you, because everything is about you, to teach you to be better people. But the thing is? You never actually learn that lesson. Anyone who believes in justice and nonviolence, in using knowledge and words instead of swords and arrows and fireballs isn't good enough to join Team Hero."
"Oh, please!" Zelena scoffed at her. "Get off your pedistal, bookworm! No magic made you trust the pirate's word that your husband was up to no good and toss him out of town when he was clearly suffering the after-effects of my horribly torturing him! Or trust your son who wasn't even the size of a pea in a dream. Nottingham told me all about your dark side. You have a villain fettish. Nothing wrong with that. Only denying it and pretending you're a self-righteous little cant!"
Emma watched Belle storm out only to realize Henry wasn't in the diner anymore. She found him out back where Violet was waiting.
"I'm sorry everyone left your mom's funeral."
Henry shrugged. "It's fine. The stuff I said? It was just the nice stuff you're supposed to say at funerals. She was my mom, and I love her, I guess, but it's not like I ever got to know her. Not like my other mom who raised me. We didn't meet 'til I was ten and then there was some magical disaster every five minutes. And that year we had in New York feels like it wasn't real, because we didn't have our memories, and after we got them back... it felt like that wasn't really her anyway, that it was what Mom shaped her into, because she instantly went from always being there to almost never being there.
"She was always with Hook," he said in disgust. "The only way I could even spend time with her was to spend time with him. And I had to act like I liked him, because she didn't care that I didn't like him. She went out with him anyway. She asked him to move in with us anyway. My dad had just died, but all she cared about was making him happy. She was selfish. And a bad mother. Which is so forked up. I brought her here because my mom was a selfish bench who killed people and didn't care and didn't know how to love and Emma basically ended up turning into that, the kind of mom I hated, that I didn't want to live with, while Regina became a good person who always puts me first.
"I was so excited when I found out my birth mom was The Savior, but I guess a magical label can't make you a good person. Or maybe she was never meant to be a savior at all, just a jerk, and that spell my grandparents had cast on her before she was born is the only reason she had powers and responsibilities... that Emma misused and ignored. I guess Mom was right all along, even if she was saying it to be a spiteful bench back in the beginning: she is my real mom. And maybe I am better off without the woman who gave me up."
"Wanna make out?" asked Violet.
"Sure."
Emma threw her empty bottle at the TV - which wasn't a physical thing so all she did was shatter the glass against a Velvet Elvis.
Her own son thought she was a horrible person who hadn't even loved him! She'd stayed in Storybrooke terrified that she wouldn't be good enough, be a good mom, desperate to prove that she could be, and she'd failed completely! She'd let herself get distracted by Hook's flattery to not have to deal with her fears and insecurities... that she apparently had made all about him to not have to face her issues with anyone else, including her son. She'd remade herself, the way she did after Cleo died, into a different person, the person she needed to be to be loved by a pirate. What had Grumpy called her? "a whiny, petty, entitled little princess."
Emma opened another bottle of rum and mused darkly that she'd also turned herself into an alcoholic for love. She wondered how many negative points she got for that...
Next up: Neal's Tallahassee gets a wrench thrown in it.
