As it turned out, Belle didn't know much more than what she had said over the phone: her estranged and supposedly banished husband had suddenly reappeared, walked into the pawn shop, and asked her for a second – no, a millionth chance.
"But did he give any indication of what he's doing? What his plans are?" asked Emma impatiently.
Belle shook her head despondently.
"He just said something about finding an author …"
Emma exchanged a glance with Regina, who cringed internally at the memory of telling Rumple her plan. But a voice in the back of her mind said that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. If the town line was open again, if Rumple had been able to cross, then maybe …
No. She wasn't going to give herself false hope, not again.
"Well, whatever he's up to, we'll stop him," she said. "But we need to find him first. Give me something of his and I'll try a locator spell."
Belle nodded solemnly and slipped away into the backroom. When she was gone, Emma spoke:
"You know what this means, right?"
"I don't want to talk about Robin Hood."
Emma blinked in confusion for a moment before a look of comprehension dawned on her face.
"Oh … you think he can come back now?"
"Like I said, we're not discussing him," Regina snapped, turning away.
"Right. Well, what I meant is, Gold is looking for the author too."
"I noticed," Regina said sharply. "And before you ask, yes, he got the idea from me."
Always the villain, she thought. What should I have expected?
Of course he would take her idea and use if for his own ends. Of course he would try to take his own happy ending. And without her, without what she had told him, he wouldn't even know. If anything happened, did that make it her fault?
Belle emerged from behind the curtain, holding a man's tie in a deep shade of navy blue.
"Here," she said, placing it on the counter along with a small bottle of shimmering blue liquid.
"That's his?" Regina asked.
Belle nodded, fidgeting uncomfortably.
"When you find him …"
But Regina cut her off.
"I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you," she said. "We'll do whatever we have to, and if that means putting the greater good first, then so be it. You of all people should understand that."
Belle turned away, a shadow crossing her face.
"If it makes you feel better, neither of us wants to become the Dark One."
"Just go. Do what you have to, protect the town, but … don't hurt him if you don't have to. Please."
"We'll do our best," Emma assured her.
Regina poured the potion over the tie, and it rose into the air, hovering for a moment before it started to float away like a leaf in the wind. The two women hurried to follow it.
"They're coming."
"They?" demanded Rumplestiltskin. "Who?"
"The Savior and the Evil Queen," said Ursula, staring at the image in the mirror.
"Well, that wasn't part of the plan," said Rumple impatiently. "We need to speak with Regina alone."
Cruella let out a harsh laugh.
"Oh, don't worry," she said. "I'll take care of the Savior."
Pulling out her phone, she dialed Emma's number.
"Hello. Is this Sheriff Swan?" she asked in her best imitation of a concerned citizen. "I'm down by the pharmacy, and we need your help. There's some sort of a … disturbance. Yes, it's very urgent, get down here immediately. Thank you so much."
Ursula looked over her shoulder at the other woman and raised an eyebrow.
"What's going on at the pharmacy?" she asked.
"Nothing yet," said Cruella carelessly. "But there will be by the time our dear Sheriff gets there."
Emma arrived on the scene just in time to see a woman in a fur coat standing outside the newly-shattered window of the pharmacy. She recognized her instantly.
"Cruella de Vil."
"Well, aren't you clever?" said Cruella in a mocking tone.
"Don't move," she ordered, pulling out her gun and aiming it at the strange but familiar woman.
"I'd be careful with that if I were you," said Cruella, gesturing toward the crowd of bystanders emerging, wide-eyed, from the nearby building. "You wouldn't want to hit one of them by mistake, now, would you?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Emma demanded, glaring at the woman in the furs.
"Why, I was just going about my own business, running errands and such, when all of a sudden, a horrible wolf crashed through that window over there. What makes you think I had anything to do with this?"
Emma blinked. "Because you're …"
"A villain?"
Cruella came closer, her high heels clip-clopping against the pavement, looking Emma in the eye as if daring her to shoot.
"Are you really so blind?" she asked. "You think you can judge me on no other basis than what some storybook says? I thought villains in this town were given second chances. Or does that only apply to your pirate boyfriend and the Evil Queen?"
Cruella's face was only inches away from Emma's now. Emma's mind was in a whirl. It was true enough that she was dating Captain Hook and trying to help the Evil Queen find her happy ending. And wasn't it just six weeks since the Snow Queen's remorse had saved them all? Emma knew better than most that the difference between hero and villain was a blurred line that wasn't impossible to cross. But she wasn't that gullible. Just because Cruella de Vil had shown up claiming to be an innocent bystander didn't mean that Emma was going to assume she was telling the truth.
After Emma left to deal with the latest crisis – at Regina's insistence that she had to do her job – Regina rolled her eyes and trudged on after the floating necktie. It led her through the woods, where she cursed the fact that she was wearing heels but stubbornly refused to change them with magic. After all, what was a hike in heels to someone who had once dug in the woods in a short skirt and charged into battle in cleavage-revealing armor?
Her search led her to a spacious log cabin deep in the woods that she recognized at once as belonging to Mr. Gold.
"So he's not hiding …" Regina muttered to herself, as she cautiously approached the door, expecting a trap. But the door opened easily, and from the room inside, a familiar man rose to greet her.
"Hello, dearie."
Regina took a step back instinctively.
"Well, don't be rude and stand there in the doorway," said Rumple, hobbling forward with his cane. "Come in, come in."
Regina hesitantly stepped over the threshold and into the cabin. It looked almost exactly as it had in years past, but of course everything was different now. Out of the corner of her eye, Regina caught sight of an unfamiliar woman sitting by the fire.
"Who are you?" she blurted out.
"We've met before," replied the stranger. "Although I'm not surprised you don't remember. A lot's changed since you impersonated me."
A chill ran through the former Evil Queen as the memory resurfaced. Stony tentacles wrapped around her, choking her. A voice … "Next time you try impersonating me, you'll find out just how real I am." She shuddered.
"Ursula. The sea goddess."
The other woman laughed.
"Some people call me that. Others call me a witch."
For a moment, an amused smile curled the corners of Regina's mouth before she caught herself, putting on a steely expression as she turned back to her former mentor.
"All right, Rumple, cards on the table," she said harshly. "What are you doing here?"
He shrugged, gesturing vaguely with his arms and tilting his head, with a smirk forming on his face.
"Given what's happening lately, I've decided that your author theory may not be so ridiculous after all," he said. "So I've gathered a few old friends to track him down and force him to give us our happy endings. We could use your help, if you'd be willing."
Regina stared at him skeptically. A voice in the back of his mind whispered that the Dark One and the Sea Witch might be useful allies in her quest to find the author. But no, she couldn't listen to that voice. This wasn't like getting help from Emma and Henry. She couldn't ally herself with those who were still villains – otherwise, how was she any different?
"Who are these old friends?" she asked. Rumple smiled in response.
"Well, I see you've already met Ursula," he said. "And I've brought another of my old students back with me, Cruella de Vil. I don't believe you know her yet. And we're hoping to revive Maleficent."
Regina's eyes widened as his meaning sunk in. Maleficent. Her friend. Her friend who she had betrayed. Who she had trapped in another form. Whose death she had helped bring about. A part of her yearned for her old friend, but a bigger part – the part that had learned hatred and revenge, that knew love only as weakness, the part of her that had known Maleficent – panicked at the thought.
"We'll need your help for that," Rumple continued. "That is, if you'll help us."
Regina didn't hesitate this time; she shook her head emphatically.
"No?" Ursula demanded. "Why not? We're all on the same side, aren't we? Our interests are aligned perfectly."
"Our interests are aligned?" Regina said, almost laughing. The familiar phrase felt odd to her. Like looking down after the Spell of Shattered Sight was lifted and realizing she was dressed in one of the elaborate gowns she had worn as Queen. It was part of her past, but it wasn't quite right anymore.
"Villains don't get happy endings," Ursula said. "But we can change that. Together."
Regina shook her head again.
"No. I want my happy ending, but …" she hesitated. "Not like this. I don't want to be a villain anymore."
Rumple snickered under his breath as she spoke.
"What?" she demanded, glaring at him.
"I thought you might say that," he said. "You were quite insistent the last time we spoke. Something about 'that's no longer me'. But don't worry. I have something that just might change your mind."
As he spoke, his face morphed into a sinister grin that reminded Regina of the man she had known in the time before the curse.
"What?" she asked. "What could you possibly have that would make me give up on the person I want to be?"
Rumple turned to Ursula, who seemed to take this as some kind of a hint and slipped quietly out of the room.
"You see, I didn't make two stops on my way here," Rumple explained, turning back to Regina. "I made three."
She stared at him, trying to discern the truth in his impish eyes, but he simply stared back as if to tell her that she should already know. An awful thought crept up in her mind, all the more terrible because a part of her almost wanted it to be true.
A man was pushed into the room, where he fell to the floor and struggled with bound wrists to push himself into a sitting position. He looked up at Regina, familiar blue eyes full of fear.
Robin.
The people at the pharmacy all told the same story: they had been going about their business when all of a sudden, a huge wolf had barged in through one of the windows, shattering it but apparently emerging unharmed, trampled through the store, snarled at a few people, knocked over a few shelves of items, and disappeared right back out the broken window.
There were little variations, of course. One man (who didn't even have a scratch on him) declared that the wolf had nearly killed him and that he was lucky to have fought it off, but his wife laughed at that and informed Emma that he had screamed and climbed on top of a display table to get away from the wolf when it came charging past. A little girl, maybe five years old, insisted that the wolf was as big as an elephant. A very confused woman commented that it wasn't supposed to be wolf's time for another week.
But Emma didn't suspect that Ruby had anything to do with this. No, the person she suspected most was Cruella de Vil. She knew the woman had been lying when she said she was simply running errands. Her lie detector might not be infallible, but she wasn't that stupid. And with several people describing a white wolf with black markings – a description that immediately brought to mind Cruella's black and white hair and the coat she wore – a bizarre thought flickered in Emma's mind. But no, that would be crazy.
Then again, how many times had her idea of crazy appeared walking down Main Street and threatening to take over the town?
Either way, her gut told her that this woman was up to something.
But there was no evidence. No one recognized Cruella or made any mention of a woman in a fur coat. As far as Emma could prove, she had simply been passing by and witnessed the wolf's attack. And as much as she hated to admit it, the other woman was right: she couldn't arrest her just for being a villain from a kids' story, when the evidence that she had committed a crime was circumstantial at best. Not when she remembered the last time she had done more or less that very thing.
"You can pretend all you want, but we know how you are, and who you will always be!"
With a frustrated sigh, she turned to Cruella:
"It looks like I can't prove you did anything wrong," she said. "So you're free to go."
The other woman smiled lazily, as if she had known all along that Emma wouldn't be able to pin it on her. Emma scowled. Something about this woman got under her skin.
"But I'm warning you," she said fiercely. "You had better be on your best behavior, because if I find out you're stealing people's puppies or whatever it is you do …"
Cruella simply laughed. Emma gritted her teeth as she turned and walked away. She really did not like this woman.
"Robin!"
Regina was beside him in an instant, but a powerful force pushed her backwards, pinning her against the wall.
"Not so fast, dearie."
"Let him go!" Regina ordered. "He has nothing to do with this."
"Oh, I know that," said Rumple nonchalantly. As he waved his hand, Robin was pulled to his feet. "He has no value to us at all. But to you …"
With a sinister smile, he thrust his hand forward into Robin's chest and pulled out his heart, red and pulsing in the dim light of the cabin.
"NO!"
Memories surged through Regina's mind, as vivid as if they here happening right at this very moment. Because they were. It was happening all over again, just like before. No, not again. Please. Don't take him, don't hurt him, don't let it happen again, not like …
"Like your stable boy."
Had she spoken aloud? She must have, because now she was sobbing, begging for Robin's life.
"Please …"
Her former mentor was at her side in an instant, touching her arm almost in a caress, and whispering to her with his mouth an inch from her ear. If she didn't know better, she would say his tone was almost gentle.
"I don't have to," he breathed. "And I won't, not as long as you cooperate. I told you I wanted you to have a happy ending, and I do. We can all have our happy endings, if we work together. Just do as I say, and I won't hurt him."
Regina pulled away from his touch and reached for Robin's heart, but her fingers closed around empty air as Rumple, and the heart with him, disappeared into a puff of smoke. From the other side of the room, he called out to her.
"What will it be, dearie?"
His grip tightened against the pulsing heart in his hand, and Robin let out a cry of pain, falling to his knees and grabbing his chest as if doing so could stop the agony. She caught him as he fell, memories flashing through her mind. She was here with Robin, but she was also on the straw-covered dirt floor of the stables, holding Daniel's lifeless body and trying in vain to kiss him back to life. She looked up in terror, half expecting to see another heart crushed to dust, but it still beat in Rumplestiltskin's grasp.
"Don't hurt him," she sobbed. "Please. I'll do whatever you want."
Robin was breathing more easily now as Rumple's grip on his heart loosened.
"That's all I needed to hear."
The author flipped through the fresh pages with a satisfied smile on his face. The Evil Queen had taken the path he knew she would. She was back in her rightful place with the Queens of Darkness, those who dwelt in the shadows and would never deserve to walk in the light.
Redemption was futile. No one could escape their destiny, not even the endlessly stubborn Evil Queen.
A/N: to everyone who's read and reviewed, thank you so much!
By the way, I also have a Tumblr, so feel free to follow me there if you like. My url is starlightspecter.
