Sorry again for the wait, I was very sick most of this week. You could probably sail a ship on the amount of soup and sweet tea I've consumed. (And sorry for the quote, but it seemed appropriate.)
"Would you like an adventure now, or would you like your tea first?"
-Peter Pan
Chapter Ten: Close Quarters
(Storybrooke: Present)
Emma shifted the straps of a cooler bag higher up on her shoulder as she hurried down the dock. Despite the early afternoon hour, few but Mother Superior's finest walked the streets. With the town on lock-down, Granny's was closed, but thankfully Mary Margaret stockpiled enough leftovers from the potluck to feed a small army. Mary Margaret packed up quite the picnic while Emma updated her about the day's developments. Well, most of them. She braced at a twinge of guilt; instincts forged from her own foray through time nudged her to keep quiet about coming events, which meant not telling her parents the full truth about Lillian. As far as they and the rest of Storybrooke were concerned, the girl was just a traveler from another realm.
Still, Emma had to admit a certain element of convenient motivation to her story. She'd been running on emotion and pure adrenaline for weeks now. Suddenly meeting her own grown daughter, she sympathized with Mary Margaret on yet another unexpected level and it was like another piece of straw on the proverbial camel and she just couldn't deal with it all right now. She was tired of living in the past but neither had she planned on immediately facing what was supposed to be far off possibility, much less feeding it breakfast.
Moreover, telling Mary Margaret about Lillian pretty much meant telling Mary Margaret about Killian. It wasn't stalling if she had a legitimate reason, right?
Pushing her thoughts aside, Emma boarded the ship and descended into the captain's quarters. Lillian sat at the table, head in hands. Her own coat shredded beyond use, she instead wore Emma's coat and a spare shirt with her linen trousers. Killian sat close by, idly sorting through a pile of parchments and mementos. Gold and Belle stood at a respectful distance, speaking in heated whispers.
Emma heaved the bag onto the wooden table and unzipped the lid. "I assume they still have chicken salad in the future?" She pulled free a bagged sandwich and a thermos and handed them to Lillian. At a subtle look from Killian, she defended, "it's just sweet tea, I swear. I figure a little sugar and caffeine might do some good."
She could hear Gold's eye-roll. "Cold tea. Hardly a crime, but still a tragedy."
-0-
(Enchanted Forest: Future/Lillian's Childhood)
The hallway floor shuddered so violently beneath her as she ran that Lillian collapsed to the stone floor mid-stride. Confused, she looked around. Morning light flooded through the open archway nearby.
A grating roar sounded and Regina's former palace shook again. She crawled to the archway, biting back a scream of her own when she caught the sight of a thorny, dragon-like form snaking across the sky, so massive that its black wings swathed the landscape in shadow. Its wings tucked in abruptly and the great form barreled toward the castle. A blinding light flashed, magic hissed as the creature bounced off of a powerful shield. Another livid roar and Lillian felt her very soul rattle. The creature lashed at the shield with its tail. Defying the crackling and sizzling of the magic's resistance, it settled onto the invisible dome, dark wings curled around the shield until it nearly blotted out the sky. Below lay the open courtyard at the heart of the palace. Charming dashed along the defenses, strangled beams of sunlight glinted off his armor as he shouted orders. Soldiers scrambled to wheel out cannons, prototypes built in secret—no one would say where from—but it had Henry's mark to it.
The Scourge rammed its tail against the shield once more. With a flash and a crackle the shield fizzled away.
In a blur, the black beast dove into the courtyard and rose again with bloodied claws and the king's breastplate crunched between its teeth. Below, Charming sprawled, crimson darkened his torso and Lillian's own breath stopped.
Struggling to stand, Charming stumbled, dazed, then took up his sword and, in a wild flash of steel and rage, turned it on the men around him. After a few mad swipes, several suits clattered to the ground.
A glint of white streaked from an archway below as Snow ran to him. Sword met sword—a struggle—but with a kick and a strike, she had him stunned. With her free hand she grabbed his head and pulled him forward. A shockwave burst forth as their lips met and the courtyard brightened, but rather than expand out, it rushed back into itself, back into the couple. Snow slipped, arms still wrapped around her husband's neck, and both fell limp to the ground, dead.
A screech like laughter boomed over the castle as the Scourge made another pass, diving at the courtyard, but the cannons were ready this time. Several blasts of flame shot out, streams of fire combined, winding into coils of blazing light. The coil of a vicious, burning cobra.
Great fangs emerged from the mass of light. Snake struck dragon, flames engulfed darkness, and the land shook with the screams of the Scourge.
-0-
(Storybrooke: Present)
Lillian hadn't realized her hunger until she started eating, but between bites of cold sandwich and swigs of tea, she recapped the story of her coming to Storybrooke. Hook confirmed what bits he'd gleaned from the journals. Gold confessed, too, his decades-long plan to retrieve Henry from the future, though both Lillian and Gold mutually skipped over Emma's absent memory. It seemed tidier that way, particularly given the tongue-lashing she dished out at Gold's plot.
"You saw this coming and you didn't say anything?" Emma blurted.
"I saw disparate pieces of an intricate puzzle," Gold returned simply. "That was rather the point of the whole plan, to bring back more information."
"Using Henry?"
"Rescuing him. And, to be fair, I only fleshed out the idea in the last few days, so pardon me if I'm still playing catch-up myself. When the girl appeared, I knew why she was here and the damage she could do poking around the past any longer than necessary, but you would know that as well as I, wouldn't you?"
Unsatisfied, but picking her battles, Emma took a seat close to Lillian. "How did things get so bad?"
Lillian made a point of pouring herself another cup of tea.
"In my timeline, the Scourge took a host quietly, feeding off of them undetected until it multiplied and emerged, each new Scourge far more powerful than those you have seen so far."
She hesitated when Hook glanced at her, but if he had read anything in Henry's notes, he said nothing.
"Regina died fighting it so that the curse could be undone, dissolving Storybrooke and sending everyone back in the hopes that, without Storybrooke, without magic, the Scourge would die." Lillian slowly swirled the cup on the table, wishing it held something stronger, "perhaps it would have, but no one knew it could portal right along behind. When it did, it found a wider hunting ground that it could have hoped for, growing stronger, faster, and deadlier until it could even outrun magic."
"That's why you needed the Jolly Roger," Hook murmured, "the ship that outran the curse."
Lillian nodded. "Most were so desperate to get away that anyone who had access to a portal used it, which only spread the Scourge to other lands, making it even harder to defeat."
Emma's brow furrowed. "How so? I thought it half-killed this thing to jump realms."
"Only if it has to create its own portal. If, however, someone opens a portal, with a bean for instance, it suffers no ill effects. That was why it was essential to kill it early, before it could multiply—in my timeline there are hundreds, probably thousands, of Scourge."
Hook lifted a brow. "No wonder it's been so bloody hard to kill."
"I thought this thing drove people crazy," Emma asked. "How did this thing fly under the radar for so long?"
"The victims can turn violent, at first, while they're still wrestling with the Scourge for control. We call it bonding or infecting, but once the Scourge fully bonds, it burrows into their deepest recesses, feeding on their last bit of strength. The lucky ones die almost instantaneously, too weak to sustain the Scourge for very long." Lillian's thoughts drifted to black wings and white light before Emma's hand on her arm brought her back. "The damned few, however, become hosts. All it needs is a bite or a scratch to feed, even a small one. Tests like the ones I gave only work in the first few days, otherwise, once the host is fully bonded, it's dark form fades, and detection is almost impossible until the host is fully consumed, which can take months, even years, all while the Scourge grows stronger and stronger inside them. Only those with magic can resist bonding, at least with the weaker Scourge. That's why it came after Hook," Lillian idly scraped at a browned bloodstain on her trousers, "and me."
"Don't take this the wrong way," Emma tilted her head, a shift in her green eyes signaling the importance of Lillian's answer, "but that thing practically gutted you, how do we know you're really in the clear?"
Hook's voice rumbled with wariness as well, his eyes holding a hint of disbelief. "Someone quite explicitly told me being infected meant getting one's head blown off."
"The Scourge had no time to bond," Lillian replied, "I've never seen the Scourge so weak that it could be killed during bonding." Lillian's eyes fell to the table. How such simple information recast the past in unfamiliar light. She looked directly into her mother's gaze. Something bitter and fierce lurched in her gut, though unrelated to their screeching terror of an enemy, she pressed it down and locked it away. "Besides, if it had infected me, breakfast with my long-dead father would have drawn it out and I'd have tried to slaughter you all."
Hook shrugged. "Fair point."
Emma, though, stared a bit too long to have accepted the answer at face value. She leaned back, releasing Lillian's arm.
Belle broke the awkward silence. "So if it can multiply, as you say, and portal to other realms, can we ever know if we've killed it once and for all, or will we always be waiting for another instance to attack?"
"Oh, there is a way to know for sure," Gold replied, "but they're not going to like it."