Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck

CHAPTER FOUR

OOPS

"... and then on top of the damned flowers, Zelena cursed Emma," Snow told Regina as they stood in the Mayor's foyer, Regina still holding the lasagna she'd been about to bring to Granny's when the pair barged in spouting about toxic Camelot flowers

"Cursed her? When?" croaked out Regina.

"On her farm, before Emma and Hook got sucked through the time portal," said David. "When her lips touched his and that took away her magic."

"It sounds like Zelena's own personal variation on the Curse of the Empty-Hearted," amended Snow, "making Emma behave like she'd fallen in love with Hook... rather than making someone act like they'd fallen in love with her. I read Cora's spellbook after you mentioned the curse. I know it gets around the rule that you can't make someone fall in love by manifesting a dominant duplicate identity altered to fit exactly what the caster desires them to be."

"Whatever the case, the Emma we've been interacting with was a fake manifestation of magic created from her personality," concluded David, "not unlike your 'Evil Queen' doppleganger, only without being created as a separate physical entity and tailor-made to act like Hook's ideal mate."

"Oh, that," a lilting British accent announced from the stairs. "I completely forgot about that little spell amendment."

"You forgot you cursed our daughter?" Snow snapped.

"That does seem unlikely," agreed Regina, crossing her arms. "You didn't forget that she gave you those onion rings."

Zelena scoffed. "You really think I gave Emma those onions rings? Why would I want to save her from suffering through nine full months of pregnancy? Obviously, she took them herself to get that little pirate parasite out as soon as possible. Personally, I would have just aborted the thing myself."

"So you did curse our daughter to fall in love with Hook?" David growled.

"Technically, Hook cursed her with his kiss that she knew was cursed even if she didn't know all the additional spells I tacked on the end," shrugged Zelena. "It's hardly my fault that you lot are as bad as this country's Congress. If you'd bothered to do a little magical testing on his cursed smoocher, you'd have found it. I wasn't exactly trying to hide it. So, really, all of you are at fault for sending Emma off with the useless, one-handed idiot who could be her and your family's undoing as her backup in a magic fight. I swear, it has to be more than just flower pollen making you all stupid. Lately, I've begun to wonder why I'd want to be all goody-goody like you lot when it's incredibly boring, even for the sake of my own child."

"It's because," Snow stated coolly when Zelena reached the foyer, "you've been stoned on Camelot flower spores that made you act like a good person, you evil cunt!"

To everyone's surprise, she punched Zelena in the face, breaking her nose.

"You little bitch!" Zelena shrieked and threw a bolt of magic at Snow, tossing her into Regina's mirror and scattering her bowl of apples.

"Zelena, stop it!" Regina demanded, conjuring a ball of fire as her sister prepared to launch another magical attack.

It wasn't Regina's threat that stopped her, though, and the odd expression that suddenly crossed the redhead's face was from the sensation of someone reaching through her back and yanking out her heart.

"You cursed me," Emma growled as she moved to stand facing the former Wicked Witch.

Zelena choked out, "You cursed yourself. And to be fair, you seemed enamored of that dirty pirate."

"You're a vile villain," Emma seethed, squeezing the heart, "who conned her way into this family."

"Please... I have a daughter."

"Because you raped a man. Did you know that's how you were conceived? Your mother was raped. You're a product of rape who became a rapist. And you think you deserve a happy ending with your child because you remembered one long-ago sleepover with the sister your mother could have loved with a heart, the daughter who was nothing more than a political bargaining chip, but at least she wasn't a reminder of the worst experience of her life? You're demented, Zelena," Emma spat at her, "if you really think there is any hope for you in this story."

Emma squeezed tighter and Snow tried to stop her, pleading, "Emma, this won't bring back anything you've lost because of her."

"Or anyone," Emma stated and glared at Zelena, asking "Do you know why Neal died?"

"Because he was foolish enough to believe a talking candle?" countered Zelena impetuously, apparently too foolish even with her heart in another's hand not to make a snide remark.

But then, heroes weren't supposed to seek revenge.

"No, he died so I could defeat you. Better late than never," Emma corrected and squeezed until Zelena's black-centered heart shattered to dust and she slumped over dead. "Oops."

"Emma," Snow exhaled.

"She deserved it," Emma insisted.

"Maybe she did," Regina conceded, "but you didn't deserve to be the one to do it."

"Yes I did. For Neal. For Henry. I did," she stated.

"Emma," sighed Snow, "she has... had a daughter."

"She raped a man to have his baby to spite her sister," Emma countered. "She killed my son's father and kept his father in a cage for a year to erase us all from existence so she could grow up as Cora's beloved daughter. Cora. Who the hell aspires to that?"

"She has a point," David sighed.

Regina sighed as well, looking between the lifeless body of her half-sister and the pale, bedraggled birth mother of her son who looked like hot buttered ass, quite frankly.

"I should declare some sort of revenge on you for killing my sister," uttered Regina, "but honestly, she was batshit crazy. I've done a lot of things I regret, but at least I named my son after my father because I regretted killing him. She named her daughter after her rape victim to honor him, completely oblivious that Robin died trying to keep his child away from that lunatic. I don't know why anyone let her keep the child or why I've been so... happy to have her a sister just because my mother revealed we had a sleep over one night..."

"It's the Middle Mist flowers," sighed Snow. "That's what we were trying to explain. They're apparently worse than pixie dust. They've been messing with all of our emotions, and reinforcing Zelena's curse on Emma whenever it weakened, I suppose from the true love influence of her family. It seems every time she got close to breaking free of it, Hook would bring her a bouquet of the horrid things, keeping her trapped by Zelena's spell with his attempt to be... romantic."

Only then did they notice Emma had vanished and exchanged a concerned look.

David reasoned, "Shit. We'd better get to Granny's."

AN: Ding dong, the green bitch is dead! I love writing Zelena, but she had to go.

Next up: Emma and Hook face off.