"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no." Blue muttered to herself as she watched the last of the standing soldiers fall. "This won't do at all." She brought her fists up to her chest then flourished her hands a bit, straightening her fingers and effectively freezing the room. She then stepped into it, directing all the occupants' attention toward her with just a flick of the wrist. She moved close to Mulan and glared at her, "You've been naughty. How did you escape?" She didn't unfreeze her for an answer, she did point and wave her hand to Tink, "Tinkerbelle?" She moved to the blonde girl.
"Yes, Blue?"
Blue stared the blonde dead in the eyes, "Where are the flowers?"
~0~0~0~0~0~
"Listen!" Tink yelled at the Angels as they joined in the fight in the warehouse. She and Hook just finished loading the last of the flowers in the van—while fighting off guards, "It's only a matter of time before Blue senses a disturbance here and comes here herself. We have to get the flowers out of here now."
"Where are they?" Belle asked as she unsheathed a guard's sword then spun and thrust the blade behind her, stabbing the man with his own sword.
"We've loaded them into the van by the loading dock." Hook called, distracting a few of the never-ending guards.
"RUBY!" Mulan growled as she put a headlock around one guard and managed to kick two others to unconsciousness. "Go! Take the van and bring it some place safe. Fast!"
Ruby smiled before dodging a guard's mace and seemingly disappearing.
"Where'd she go?" The guard asked as he looked around.
Mulan swiped the mace from him and inspected it a moment in appreciation. She then hit the guard over the helmet with it and watched him fall to his unconscious. "None o'ya business."
~0~0~0~0~0~
Tink stared into Blue's soul. "Somewhere where you'll never find them. A far off land that no one ever should go." She said "one" and "ever" as if they were one word: "never."
Mulan had been staring hard at the blue fairy. She, more than anything, wanted to see her pay for her sins. And it was by pure will that the magical hold upon her was released and she started moving towards Blue.
This movement, of course startled Blue, who tried to freeze the warrior. It didn't work. Each time Blue froze Mulan it seemed to ripple through Mulan's body but didn't even slow her down. "How is this happening?"
"That's not what you should be asking." Mulan growled as she closed in on the fairy, "You should be asking for forgiveness."
Blue made a sweeping gesture with her skirt and turned into her fairy form, narrowly escaping Mulan's angry hands. She buzzed by Tink, "I know where they are."
"Oh do you?" Tinkerbelle asked.
Blue didn't respond, she simply poofed from the warehouse, causing the freezing hold on everyone else to break.
~0~0~0~0~0~
"They stayed here?" Mulan asked as the Angels, Hook and Tink entered the protective bubble surrounding the Mills-Swan Mansion.
"Emma and Regina insisted." Belle nodded.
Ruby then gave her own explanation. "They figured the least they could do is protect them for you while you were busy protecting everyone else…"
~0~
Rose had fallen asleep after she told her mother everything would be fine. Aurora had finally fallen asleep stroking Rose's hair, rocking them both in a rocking chair that was in their room.
Rose's eyes snapped open, "Mu's here." She whispered before she jumped out of her mother's arms onto the floor. She grabbed her mommy's slippers and robe, throwing the slippers at her feet and the robe on her lap, "Mommy! Mu's home!" She then grabbed her Sulley Monster slippers and slipped them on before she realized her mother wasn't moving. "MOMMY!" She cried, shaking her mother's arm.
"Hm? What is it?"
Rose put her sassy, little hands on her hips and started tapping her foot, "Mu's home."
"Mu's home?" Aurora stood, quickly stuffing her feet in her house shoes and wrapping her robe around her, tying the waist quickly.
~0~
Emma jolted awake to the sound on her phone. She got a text alerting her that the Angels had landed and were back. She also happened to accidentally wake up the baby. The whimpering was about to turn to full-fledged crying, but Emma got to her in time. She held Hannah close as she left a note for her wife on the bedside table and moved to go downstairs.
Just as she was passing Aurora and Rose's door on the hallway, it opened and a very excited Rose ran right into her legs, not bothering to apologize before gunning down the stairs.
"I'm so sorry…" Aurora said, "She thinks that—"
"MUUUUU!" The toddler's cry woke the entire house, including the almost-back-to-sleeping infant.
Aurora turned to the sound of her daughter's voice, not in embarrassment or anger that her child screamed so loud, but in understanding that her daughter had been right and that her wife was right downstairs. "Mulan?"
Emma smirked, "Looks like someone's got her Mu's instinct…" the blonde gestured to the stairs as she rocked the baby quickly settling her back down.
Aurora took to the stairs and all three doors in the hallway that hid someone in their rooms opened. A curious Whale and Henry looked to Emma, who nodded for the stairs before waiting on her scrutinizing wife.
"Why didn't you wake me?" Regina asked as she took the baby from Emma and calmed the baby instantly.
"I wanted to let you sleep." Emma spoke softly.
"Why?"
"Um… I'm sorry, did you, or did you not push our baby out of your vagina earlier today?"
Regina glared at her wife, "That's no excuse."
"No excuse?! That's like the only excuse for getting out of stuff besides death and epic diarrhea! 'Why didn't you come to the meeting' 'Oh, sorry… birthed a baby this morning..' 'Right then. We'll see you in three months…'" Emma gave her wife a look before moving towards the stairs.
"Emma?"
Emma stopped dead in her tracks and let the brunette pass her by.
"I love you." Regina stopped and kissed the blonde before moving down the stairs.
Emma smirked. She never completely understood Regina… even though she totally did.
When she got to the living room, she found the two men and her son had congregated together; Rose had moved on from her mother to the woman—the fairy she didn't know; Regina was showing the baby off to Bell and Ruby (though Hook and Tink had their eyes on the baby as well; both seemed scared still); and Mulan and Aurora were unabashedly, hardcore macking.
She coughed, getting everyone's attention. "Angels and Hook… and Tink." She gestured with her head. The Angels were the first to move with one more stroke of Hannah's baby fuzz for Belle and Ruby and one more kiss from Aurora for Mulan. Hook stepped from his trio, realizing he was being asked to go somewhere. And Tink moved from her spot next to Rose after receiving a look from Hook. Regina started to follow, but Emma put her hand out, "Regina, stay."
"I'm no dog." Regina again started to move, but Emma stopped her.
"Stay." The blonde's voice was insistent. She glanced around the room, "We'll be brief."
~0~
They walked into the study. Emma shut the door and locked it behind her. She turned and pointed to Hook and Tink, "Why are you both still scared. I thought everything was taken care of."
Tink shook her head, "No. I used NLP to make her think the flowers were in Neverland."
"What's the big deal? Neverland is not here." Emma asked the other blonde.
"The big deal is first, that she has a way to get to Neverland, and second that it's only a matter of time before she comes back and what she comes back with…"
Emma nodded, she started to pace before she turned back and again pointed at Tink, "What's NLP?"
"What?" Tink didn't understand why she was being asked this question in this moment.
"What's NLP?" Emma insisted.
"Neuro-Linguistic Programming."
"And what's that?" Emma sat on top of the desk.
Tink knit her brows, "It's what Ruby does..all the time?"
"What do I do?" Ruby asked, brows knit. She sat a little straighter, a little more attentive than she usually was.
"You manipulate and persuade to make the outcome you all want… What I did is the same thing, but instead of my body language, I manipulated her with how I spoke to her. I planted the idea of Neverland in her head."
"I didn't know it had a name." Ruby was impressed as she looked to Belle, who was giving her an odd look before looking to her boss.
"So how much time do we have?" Emma stared at the blonde.
"A week? A month? A year?" Tink shrugged, "I have no idea. As Hook said; she's got a way to get to Neverland and back."
Emma nodded, "You wanna be an Angel?"
"Wait." Mulan narrowed her eyes as she stared at Tinkerbelle.
"But…" Belle looked to her boss.
Ruby opened her mouth but closed it again.
"What?" Tink asked the blonde.
"You wanna be an Angel? We could use you."
"I…" Tink looked off in thought.
"If you want to think about it, that's fine." Emma stood, "Okay. We've got a day. Where are the flowers for real?" she looked to Ruby.
"Behind the diner."
"Do me a favor. Go get them and Archie and bring them here tonight. Then you all can crash; we have plenty of room." She said this as she did a head count, "No. I lied. Two of you will need to bunk together." She looked at Belle and Ruby, "I trust you two won't mind so we can accommodate the rest of our guests…" She didn't bother waiting for an answer before walking out of the room. She, like everyone else, wanted Belle and Ruby to just get the show on the road.
"Fine." Ruby nodded, "I'll be back in a few minutes." She stood and darted out of the house.
The other four stood and looked at each other, "Does she act that way often?" Tink asked.
"What way?" Mulan glared at the blonde.
"A little off-center? She seems a little eccentric. From what I've seen, she's normal, but she seemed, I don't know… Like she asked random questions then offered me a job?"
"Oh." Belle let her smile grow, "Yeah. But we always find out later that nothing she does is ever actually random. She wasn't going to ask you until she knew you could do it again when she needed it. She probably thinks you could teach Ruby a few things too."
Mulan slowly made her way for the door, "We're done, right?"
The other three smiled, "Yes, Mulan. Go be with your girls."
"Do either of you have an explanation for what we saw of our fair warrior tonight?" Hook asked.
Emma walked back into the study with her baby in her arms and her wife at her side. Having overheard Hook's question, she looked up from Hannah's sleeping face with a seriousness that was rarely there, "What happened to Mulan?" She asked about to get Whale to look her strongest Angel over.
"She was almost completely immune to Blue's magic…" Tink started.
"Blue would freeze her and it would work its way through her like a ripple, freezing each part of her for a split second before she was normal again." Belle finished.
Emma and Regina looked at each other then back to the three in the room.
Ruby appeared seemingly out of thin air with an unconscious Archie in tow. She turned to Hook after laying him on the couch and patted his arm, "Archie passes out instead of puking his guts out if it makes you feel better." She smirked before getting a sense of the room. "What?"
AN: Hope you enjoyed! There are 14 chapters total, so we are getting there. Just a few more days! Please read and review!