His eyes burned and his ears were ringing, but Neal couldn't say he was surprised at the outcome of the little magic-science experiment they had been attempting. An explosion that had broken everything they'd been using. It wasn't like it would take a lot to fix it, just a simple wave of his hand, but honestly, he didn't want to do this again.
Neal knew what was coming, but it didn't make the sting of the slap hurt any less.
"Why didn't it work?!" came Jekyll's frantic voice.
"I warned you, Jekyll. You and Hyde both. I can't change the laws of magic. And neither can science." Neal said simply, trying to keep his composure. He'd warned this idiot countless times that even the darkest of dark magic could not change the laws that had been set up. What Emma and Hook had done had been a restoration of what was written to happen. Zelena had re-written something, but it hadn't been the past.
It had been fate. Although all things considered, it had worked out in her favor since his father would have ended up killing her had he died at the Dark One's vault, even if it meant that he was like this.
Jekyll let out a frustrated growl, stepping back. "Fine. We'll try something else then."
"Why can't you just woo her?" Neal asked with a frown. "You know, flowers, chocolates. The usual."
"You don't think I haven't tried?!" Jekyll shouted. "She rejected me! Me! After everything I did for her!"
It took all of Neal's effort not to roll his eyes in disgust, understanding why this Mary woman wouldn't want anything to do with Jekyll. "I can't imagine why. But sometimes, women see men as friends."
"No! I'll make her see that I am the superior one. Not Hyde! And then we can rule Storybrooke together!"
Neal was really questioning which one was the evil one in this situation. If it were up to him, both of them would have met their end and Mary would be free to live without fear.
With the dagger attached to Jekyll's hip, it wasn't possible for him to escape yet, but Neal knew that his father and Emma were going to stop them.
"You can't show her how superior you are if you're going around keeping me hostage and acting like a nutcase. And your partner can't either if he's going around trying to reveal personal secrets people don't want others to know," Neal said, rolling his eyes. "Why are you doing that anyway?"
"Everyone has a story they don't want to be told…" Jekyll said with a chuckle. "And it's fun to cause chaos, don't you think? That's why Hyde brought everyone here. It's fun to watch them squirm… once I make sure certain people are out of the way, I'll take over this little town. Finally, I can take revenge on the man that caused all the troubles in my life."
Neal had a sinking feeling, but he looked at the man in curiosity. "Who was that?"
Jekyll smirked, putting the dagger against Neal's cheek. "Why, your father of course. Why else would I have picked you to become the Dark One?" Jekyll was sounding hysterical now, and that worried Neal. Every time a villain got like this it never ended well for the innocents.
"Look, my father did a lot of things, but I highly doubt he had anything to do with Mary not having any romantic feelings toward you," Neal said with a frown. "Especially since magic can't interfere with love." As he had repeated more than once in the days since Jekyll and Hyde had captured him.
"That's why you need science to help balance the – " Jekyll began to say before another voice cut him off.
"Neal? Where are you?" came Anastasia's faint voice, far down one of the corridors of the mines.
He didn't think he'd ever been so happy to hear her voice.
"Ah, someone's come to find you, hm? Not yet, not yet…" Jekyll cackled, pulling the dagger away from Neal's cheek. "Send them away if they find us."
Neal growled under his breath, fingers flexing as magic flowed just beneath the skin. He wanted to scream out to Anastasia that yes, he was here, that all she needed to do was incapacitate Jekyll and he could be free of his control, but the problem was, he wasn't free just yet.
He growled under his breath at the man, itching to do something, anything to him.
"We're getting close. I can sense his magic from here…" he heard his father then, and the urge to cry out like a lost little child grew, but he was tethered to the dagger, and Jekyll wouldn't allow him to.
"You can do something about Jekyll, you know. All you'd have to do is distract him when his back is turned…" the vision of his father's darkness said with a giggle.
"When are you going to go away?!" Neal mentally groaned, looking at the vision.
"Never. I'll always be there, my dear boy. To support you in anything you do."
"This is not the support I need! You weren't there for me when I was stuck in Neverland for three hundred years!" he snapped. "I have support from my real father!"
"Dark One, I command you to get us out of here," Jekyll growled when the shadows of his attempted rescuers appeared on the far wall.
Neal sighed and waved his hand, spiriting them back to their hideout, leaving a vial of the bright red liquid they'd been working on behind.
It wasn't much, but it was a small hint to what they had been working on, and he knew the others would figure it out.
"Don't worry, Dark One. I'll make sure you're set free before my plans fully come to fruition," Jekyll said, smirking and beginning to pour over the books again.
Neal could only roll his eyes as he stared out the window at the road out of town, seeing Emma's yellow bug coming down the road, and for the first time in a day, he felt a bit of hope in his darkening heart.
Anastasia made a mental checklist of the things she'd had to do that morning as she slipped herself into Granny's, ducking behind the main checkout desk. It was a bit of irony, really, that the two women were trapped in a small bed and breakfast room while Anastasia was in a good-sized house with the man she loved, and had a castle in Wonderland.
It gave her an immense amount of satisfaction.
"You sure you don't want to hide somewhere more comfortable, Ana? Like, in an empty room?" Ruby asked as she stood next to the crouching queen. "I mean… you do have magic after all."
"I'm fine," Ana replied. "Just tell me when they get back."
"You know, this is the last reason I thought someone would be hiding underneath this desk when I was at work," Red sighed wistfully as she leaned against the desk and looked toward the door.
Ana knew she was probably being ridiculous, hiding like a coward, but she wanted to make sure she would catch her former family off-guard.
Fidgeting, Ana could only stare at her hands. Belle's speech had been what she needed, but the thought of confronting her mother again was still making her nervous.
"Are you sure you don't want me to take care of them next week during the full moon?" Ruby asked, sensing the tension radiating off of Ana.
"No. This is something I have to do myself."
Ruby simply shrugged and turned her attention back to the lists in front of her, and it wasn't long before Ana felt a nudge from the woman's knee, a piece of paper dropping to the ground next to her as footsteps were heard, and familiar hushed whispering faded as the footsteps moved further away.
Room 320.
Smirking, Anastasia vanished in a puff of smoke to the room, hearing her sister shriek in surprise.
"Dear mother and sister. I'd wondered if you'd appeared with the other lost souls."
"Anastasia, you snake. How dare you shove us into that world?!" her mother snarled, looking every bit as stuck up and petty that Anastasia remembered. It was clear that her years in exile hadn't done anything to improve her attitude.
The insult rolled off her back. "It actually worked out quite well for me," Anastasia said with a smile and a wave of her hand, dressing in one of her regal outfits she'd worn in Wonderland, the scarlet crown resting atop her head. "Isn't this what you wanted for us, Mother? Power and wealth beyond our imaginations? Well, look at me now. And I did it all without your help."
"No way. There's no way you're a queen. If you were, why are you in this dump of a town?" Drizella scoffed with disbelief, narrowing her eyes at her.
She grinned darkly at her sister. "Magic is a fickle thing, dear Drizella. And when you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, well, sometimes you just can't escape it. Snow White's curse was just one of those things. And yes dearest. I am a queen. I am the one and only queen of Wonderland thanks to Cora's unfortunate death."
To feel the darkness she'd fought against come back up around her mother and sister was concerning, but she was ignoring the rational part of her that said to tone it down. Her mother and sister had been the reason she'd been able to produce the magic to begin with She should be grateful, but with all of the memories flooding up from the depths of her soul…
It was so incredibly tempting to just thrust her hands into their chests and pull out their hearts. All it would take was a couple of quick movements –
"So why are you here?" Drizella asked.
Her thoughts were broken by her sister's question, and she shrugged, trying to get the darkness out of her head. "I just thought I'd come to see you. It's been such a long time, you know. And of course, I wanted you to see how I've flourished in life, mother," she replied with a smile as she turned to the elder Tremaine.
"You've seen us. Now let's go back to Wonderland, so we can be a family again."
Anastasia shook her head. "I'm afraid going back isn't a simple thing, mother. The reason this town exists is because of a curse created by the darkest magic wielder in all the realms. It's not as easy as pushing you into a doorway with a key." Okay, that was sort of a lie – she could probably find the White Rabbit and have them brought back to Wonderland, but why would she want to do that?
She didn't want to live with her mother again; and if she did find a way back to Wonderland, she'd leave her mother in Storybrooke, just as she'd done when she'd shoved her mother and sister into the Land of Untold Stories. But Storybrooke didn't deserve to suffer because she left her mother and sister behind.
"So we're trapped here?" Drizella asked.
"Yes."
Her mother let out an angry growling sort of noise. "Wonderful. So how exactly is this supposed to be a second chance for us?"
She wanted to be surprised that her mother still wasn't getting it, but she wasn't. "You can start by realizing that your attitude is exactly why I pushed you into The Land of Untold Stories," Anastasia said with a casual shrug. "And that your attitude isn't going to do you any good in this world, mother. You are not queen here. You aren't even a Lady anymore. You hold no power. Get used to it."
Her mother, red-faced and seething, opened her mouth to speak before the town was rattled by a violent tremor, and without a thought, Anastasia vanished from the room.
Secretly, she was glad for the distraction. She was getting way too close to tipping over the edge into the darkness that was still in her.
"Belle! Snow! Anyone?!" she called as she landed in front of the library, blue eyes looking around wildly for some sort of answer to what had happened.
"Ana!" came David's cry as the sheriff's car screeched to a halt in front of her. "Are you okay?"
"Yes! I'm fine! Are you? What was that?" the words shot out of her mouth in a flurry as the townspeople around her tried to figure out the same thing. "Where's Snow?"
David shook his head. "I don't know, but whatever it was… it came from the mines. And Snow had to go up to the school to help calm things there."
"Isn't she supposed to be on maternity leave?"
"Apparently Mary-Margaret was good at calming people in a crisis and some of the newer students are having a hard time listening to the other teachers so Snow's going to try," David explained with a shrug.
Ana frowned and tilted her head as she scrambled over to the car and plopped herself in the passenger's seat. "Well then, let's go see what it was. Is Emma back yet?"
The siren blared as David sped off. "Not yet. She's supposed to be back relatively soon. She said her car broke down last night and they got delayed."
Gripping the door tight, Ana couldn't help but shiver slightly. "This has to be a Hyde thing, right? But it's daylight! It's too early for Hyde to be doing something like this isn't it?" she questioned.
"Those are some excellent questions that I hope we'll get the answer to," David replied with a frown. "Rumplestiltskin and Regina should be meeting us there."
"Good," Ana shivered.
The car ride was tense and quiet until David cleared his throat. "Can I ask what's up with your getup?"
Ana looked down at the crimson dress she was still wearing and gasped a little. "Oh. I had to prove a point to my mother and sister. One second." She waved her hand and changed back into the jeans and blouse she'd been wearing earlier in the day. "There we go."
"That's a much better outfit to fight crime in," David replied, the car screeching to a halt in front of the mines.
Smoke billowed out of the entrance to one of the caverns, and Ana was having a hard time figuring out if it was from the explosion or from one of her fellow magic users having arrived before them.
"Shall we go inside then?" Ana asked, looking at David with uncertain eyes. She didn't like any of this, and it was clear he didn't either.
"Yeah. Let's go."
She heard the safety of David's gun click as they slowly made their way into the mines.
"Regina, Rumplestiltskin!" she whispered when she spotted the two sorcerers, sneaking up to the two of them with David. "Have you found anything yet?"
"Nothing yet," Regina said with a sigh. "Everything okay at the school, David?"
David nodded. "Last I checked it was, but I asked Will to go there to make sure. The biggest problem they're having there is calming the younger kids down."
"Focus," Rumplestiltskin growled. "We need to find my son."
The other three exchanged a nervous glance and continued to follow the former Dark One down the corridor.
"Neal? Where are you?" Anastasia called.
"This way," Rumplestiltskin said, turning to the right when they approached a fork in the road and they followed anxiously, their footsteps quickening. "We're getting close. I can sense his magic from here…"
They stopped in a large cavern, a bright red vial of liquid the only evidence anyone had been there.
"We were too late…" Regina whispered as she picked up the vial and holding it up to the dim light of the cave. "I've never seen anything like this before, have you?"
"I'll take it and examine it," Rumplestiltskin said, snatching the vial from Regina's hand and vanishing from the cavern.
David's cell phone chimed, Anastasia sighing and looking at Regina in concern as he pulled it out.
"Emma's back with Lily," he said. "We might as well head back to town. There's nothing we can do here."
Ana nodded, taking his arm and vanishing back to the entry of the mines with him. "I'm supposed to meet Will at Granny's for lunch. Mind if I get a ride with you?"
"Not at all."
She could have easily poofed herself back to town, but having company was nice. Poofing around town reminded her too much of the darkness inside of her that she was trying to suppress, and she still felt on edge after her meeting with her mother and sister.
The ride back was filled with an awkward, sad silence. They had been so close. But that was how it always seemed to be. Just when they thought they could save Neal, it was ripped away from them again. Anastasia hadn't known the man long, but it was awful to think about, as someone who knew what the darkness could do to someone innocent, it made her sick. Not to mention, the whole being controlled thing couldn't be easy on his mind.
"We'll break the curse on Neal," David said as if sensing her thoughts. "It seems bleak now – "
"I know. This just feels like when I was in Wonderland and we were trying to beat Jafar. It seemed like it would never end. I didn't think I'd feel that helplessness again this soon, that's all," Anastasia explained as they saw Emma's familiar yellow bug on the corner by the diner. "Thank you for the ride, David. Let us know if you find something else out."
She exited the car, quickly heading into Granny's and giving Will a soft kiss before taking a seat across from him.
As she put in her order, she glanced outside and saw Snow White and Henry Mills leading Maleficent over to Emma's car.
"So that's Mal's daughter, huh? I'm surprised Regina hasn't been burned to a crisp yet," Will commented as he followed her gaze to the touching reunion between mother and daughter, and her heart shattered. "I would've killed her at this point."
"Will, you stole a mirror from her. I'm surprised she didn't kill you," Ana snapped, before frowning slightly at her own words. "Sorry."
She saw him frown and look at her. "You're thinkin' about your mum, aren't you?" he asked quietly.
"It's a little hard watching a mother and daughter reunion considering Lady Tremaine called me a snake earlier," she admitted when Will squeezed her hand gently as the Charmings made their way toward the diner.
"They ain't your family anymore. You got a new one… and we won't let Hyde and the Dark One take that away from you."
Anastasia couldn't help but smile, a bit of hope beginning to glimmer inside her.