I'm going to have no internet for a while, so I wanted to get this up before then.

One of the things I keep running into while writing this is that the characters keep having backstories. To that end, I'm thinking of starting a collection of 'extra' scenes that didn't make it into this. Would anybody actually like to see that or should I keep my headcanons to myself?

I own nothing. Enjoy.

There were people in the house. Henry heard boots stomping up the stairs, indistinct voices raised in shouting, and lots of banging and crashing and tramping as they intruded, coming closer and closer.

He leapt to his feet, half-expecting Cora to intrude and whisk him away, but the noise simply crashed into Rose's room. There were muffled voices, then her voice raised in a terrified shriek.

"Who's Belle?" she sobbed. There were thumps and thuds like something had fallen over and Henry couldn't keep silent.

"Rose!" he called, banging on the wall, "Rose, what's happening?"

"Get off me!" she screamed, "get out!" There were more voices, a sharp exclamation of pain.

"Henry?"

He hadn't noticed the door opening, Cora's lock finally giving way, until Snow spoke. The boy ran into his grandmother's arms, holding on as though he never intended to let go. She returned the hug full force, bow pressing into his back as she squeezed him. "What's happening?" he asked anxiously, the words tumbling over each other, "why's Rose screaming? Where's Pops and my mom? What happened to Cora?"

Snow pulled him out into the hallway for answer, and there was James holding a sword just like in the books, and Red in her rich crimson cloak, but his mom was there, and Henry immediately launched himself at her. Regina pulled him into a tight hug and for a moment he was content not to move, but then he had to know, so he pulled back enough to say "Rose!?"

"Rose?" Regina repeated, brow furrowing in confusion.

The door to the room next to his banged open and a woman with disheveled chocolate curls came flying out. She glanced across them all and then swiftly hid behind Ruby, using the wolf-girl as a shield, as Gold came limping out, clinging to the doorframe for support.

"Belle," he pleaded, stretching out a hand as though he could cross the distance between them with just that.

"That's not my name!" she protested. That was Rose's voice. That was Rose.

"How sweet," cooed Cora. Henry had been so wrapped in seeing everyone, in finally learning what his friend on the other side of the wall looked like that he hadn't heard the whoosh that accompanied her appearances. In a rustle of fabric, the cloak dropped to the ground and a giant wolf pounced with savage intent. Cora merely flicked her wrist and the lupine crashed against and through the wall into the room that had been his cell.

The undefended Rose rose into the air, grasping at her throat, and Gold stopped dead in his tracks, magic dying across his fingertips

"Daughter, look how weak they are. Join with me, and we can take them easily." She held out a hand expectantly, not an ounce of apprehension on her face. She was certain Regina would take her up on this offer.

"No Mother," Regina growled. She drew herself up and placed herself between him and the witch while Henry was still trying to process everything.

Green light lanced out from the dark queen's fingertips, shooting haphazardly across the room to arc into Cora. She simply laughed, and Regina cut the magic as quickly as it had begun when Rose began to wheeze and Gold shouted a warning.

"You foolish girl," she chided, sounding not even winded, "You can't kill the heartless. You can't win this."

Cora raised a hand, glowing black, and as Charming moved in front of Snow, tightening his grip on the sword, Henry shut his eyes and prayed for a miracle. There was no more True Love to save them, no wild card to play, no aid from Gold, only a sword against a foe who was seemingly unkillable. For the first time, it seemed like good could lose.

Cora's back arched and the magic in her hand winked out like a birthday candle. She blinked once, genuine surprise playing across her face, and collapsed.

For a moment, no one dared to breathe, waiting for the other shoe to drop and the woman who had, in truth, been the root of all their troubles to get up and wreck more havoc. There was nothing but Rose's gasps and Red's small whimpers, and finally the stillness was broken as James moved slowly forward to crouch next to Cora.

The king took her wrist gingerly as though she was an armed bomb and felt for a pulse. After a few moments, he looked up at Regina. "She's dead," he told her, sounding more surprised than relieved or triumphant. "I'm sorry."

Regina's expression was somewhere between relief and sorrow, but her clipped tones were unchanged as she knelt next to the corpse long enough to close Cora's eyes. "My mother was the source of a lot of pain," she told him, "including mine, but I appreciate your condolences."

Wordlessly, Henry came up next to her and wrapped his arms around his mother. "How'd she die?" he asked.

Regina put one arm around his shoulders. He could feel the grief in the tension of her fingers on his shoulder and knew she would mourn later, when people were not looking and she could be weak. "I don't know."

Earlier

The man who'd spoken was wiry, with dark hair nearly to his shoulders and chillingly blue eyes framed in cold features. He wore Spade black, and the cut of these clothes was far better than anyone else she'd seen thus far. But for all the elegance of his dress, he had a distasteful, almost bored, expression that ruined any good looks he might have had.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Jack," Dodge filled in, "Lord of Spades, Cora's Proxy, and a traitor."

The Spade pretended to think for a moment, then twirled a hand in an exaggerated gesture. "No," he replied blithely, "that would be you."

Dodge drew his sword and slashed at Jack, which the Spade neatly ducked. He steepled his fingers and then drew them apart, a single glowing blue line strung between his palms. It straightened, and he whirled it around in a blow Dodge parried. They fought back and forth in a blur of steel and magic, until Jack evidently tired of this. The bar went flexible again for just long to twist the ends to meet, Dodge's sword in the middle. He yanked the loop sideways, and pressed a hand into the general's throat.

The sword clattered against the floor as Dodge went rigid, frozen and horrified.

Emma had seen quite enough, she picked up a nearby chunk of rubble that would make a convenient beating implement. "Hey!" she called.

Slowly, he turned to face her. A horrible smile stretched across his face, cruelty in the corners, and he opened his fingers and let Dodge droop to the ground, advancing on her with predatory intent. She was abruptly rethinking this plan.

"Who are you?" he purred, stopping a few feet from her and starting a slow circle. A creep, wonderful. Thankfully, she'd been dealing with creeps long enough that this was right up her alley.

Emma dropped long enough to swing his legs out from under him and took off in the opposite direction while he was incapacitated. Whatever he'd pulled out of thin air looked suspiciously like a lightsaber and she didn't want to stick around long enough to find out if it cut like one.

She made it only around the next corner before Jack appeared in the hallway directly in front of her, stepping out of a mirror with only a ripple across the surface of the looking glass. "Why do they always run?" he asked no one in particular as she barreled straight into him.

Those arms came up around her with deceptive strength, holding her firmly far too close to that smug grin.

Jack's face changed as his eyes dropped to her neck, seemingly unaffected by her struggles to get free. "What's this?" he asked, and his long fingers came up to pluck at something on the collar. She knew before he even held it up what it was by the way the collar ratcheted tight again. He was holding the tiny gem Robyn had affixed to the metal.

The Spade tucked it away into a pocket, and Emma took advantage of the fact he had incapacitated one hand. She slammed the rock-weighted hand into his nose as she stomped down on his foot, and made a break for it, back the way she'd come, while he was howling in pain.

Dodge was still slumped over, so she worked his arm over her shoulders and half-carried, half-supported him back through the first mirror they'd come through.

"What did he do to you?" she asked.

"Magic," the general panted, "get back to Robyn. Can't follow us back here."

Emma focused on remembering the twists that had brought them to this spot and keeping Dodge from plummeting to the floor. "What's his problem?" she questioned, more in an attempt to keep the Club talking than out of a desire to know, "girl troubles?"

"Something like that," he huffed. He was trying to take more of his weight now, which she judged as a good sign. "Spades haven't been a favored Suit for generations, and then his younger brother became King."

"Jack must have been pleased with that," Emma observed dryly.

Dodge managed something like a laugh. "When Cora showed up, he was among the first to pledge allegiance," he told her, "most Spades still alive are thralls. He's not."

"He'll be contacting his Queen now," he said as she backed them into the doors to the aviary, "we need to move."

"No, we don't!" Robyn's voice argued out of the sparrow feathered in onyx that had landed on Dodge's shoulder.

"Robyn..." he started.

"Don't you Robyn me!" the sparrow continued, "I'm calling one of the healers now. You can brief your soldiers and storm the castle then, but you are going to sit down and be poked and prodded and not one complaint do you hear me?"

Emma had to hide a smile as she helped Dodge to sit down. The Lady of Diamonds reminded her of her own mother when Snow got worked up about something. The realization made a wave of homesickness wash over her, but the thought of Storybrooke reminded her.

The blonde crouched down next to Dodge. "Do you know the Hatter?" she demanded.

He nodded. "Everyone does."

"Are there any more of his hats here?" she continued, "in Wonderland?"

The general shrugged. "In the castle," he replied, "how does it help, they don't work."

Emma didn't answer that Jefferson himself had once thought that, and she had apparently accomplished the impossible. "If this works, I get one," she said.

Dodge looked at her thoughtfully. "If this works, I'll personally get you one of Jefferson's hats and tell you everything he ever told me about the thing," he swore.

She filed away the information that he'd known Jefferson well enough to for the Hatter to have talked with him, and ignored the people bursting through the foliage to take the offered hand and shake firmly.

A boy, hardly a teenager, in red robes, knelt on the other side of Dodge and waved a hand over him. The general rolled his eyes and Emma stood so as not to interfere in whatever this was.

"It's a simple paralysis spell," the boy said after a moment, "a good flush should get it out."

Robyn visibly relaxed at the news, and Emma took her by the elbow to gain her attention.

"This comes off now," she demanded, indicating the collar.

The Diamond didn't argue, simply fished out the handful of diamonds from before and pouring them into Emma's waiting palm.

The first one she jabbed up stuck, and the collar ratcheted infinitesimally looser. The Diamond nodded and went to sit in the place next to Dodge that she had recently vacated.

"What happened?" the pirate asked. He'd come in in the commotion, but remained along the sidelines.

"A disgruntled sorcerer," Emma answered.

He paused, moving into her line of sight. "We could still go," Hook suggested, "Cut our losses and leave this world to its own politics."

An hour ago, she might have agreed with him and taken her chances with finding something, but now she had a solid lead, and besides Cora deserved what was coming to her. "Fine then, go" she snapped, stabbing another diamond into the metal, "Find yourself a portal and leave."

"I'm not going to abandon you," he snarled. Emma stepped back reflexively, putting valuable distance between them, one hand dropping to touch the swan pendant. A lot of people had told her things like that, and none of them had ever kept their word. People were always ripped away, even if they didn't choose it. Hoping that he might be different? That would only put more scars on her heart. It was already only barely held together by duct tape, a prayer, and her own determination; it didn't need to be trampled on any more.

"I'm not," Hook repeated, something of Killian breaking through, and for a moment she could almost believe it.

Emma shook her head, stepping back again as the words failed over each other in her throat. She couldn't believe, it was too dangerous.

"Swan," he said. Damn pirate, he had no right to sound so broken. She wasn't leaving him in the care of a giant for ten hours or anything like that.

"Why?" No, that was not what was supposed to come out, she'd wanted to snap at him, get him back to angry. She could deal with angry. Lethally sincere was another story altogether, and the worst part was that her lie detector hadn't gone off yet.

"Won't I abandon you?" He smiled mirthlessly. "I know what it feels like Swan, and however much you seem to enjoy causing that, I do not."

She jerked back as though he'd hit her, and he realized the implication a second too late. "Swan-" he began.

"Save it," she growled, turning her back on him. She continued furiously jabbing gems into the collar, feeling it grow looser with every diamond. "Go, Hook."

"Cora's heart is not in her chest," he told her, or maybe warned, "she can't be killed without it."

The last gem stuck, but the collar didn't come off. Emma tugged at it impatiently, but the thing didn't budge. "I'll keep that in mind," she told the pirate stiffly, and stalked off.

"What's wrong?" she asked Robyn, "Why isn't it coming off?"

The Lady straightened and laid a hand on the metal. Her eyes went vacant as though she was looking somewhere far beyond, and her brow furrowed. "It's missing one," she told Emma.

The one that Jack took.

Emma had had just about enough. She wanted to go home, and she was getting sick of people getting in her way. She whirled back to Dodge. "How soon can we go?" she asked.

The general waved off the healer and heaved himself to his feet with only a modicum of wobbling. "As soon as we gather the Clubs," he answered.

"Not without me," Robyn interjected. She crossed her arms, and the trees behind her were alight with the glitter of gem-feathered birds, each of which was a key.

Almost reflexively, Emma glanced over her shoulder, looking for Hook. The pirate shrugged.

"I may as well," he sighed.

Things fell into place very quickly after that. The resistance was made up mostly of Clubs, who, Emma learned, served as Wonderland's milita under normal circumstances, along with a handful of Diamonds. They had a few Hearts, in the form of their healers, but all of them had been strictly disciplined and drilled for something like this.

They assembled in a large hall, the entire back wall reflecting their faces back at them. Emma turned her back on it, and scanned the room.

"If you had all these people , why didn't you do something before now?" she asked Robyn, who was next to her doing final checks on her keys.

"You're going to be powerful when that collar comes off," Robyn admitted, "and we've never had that before."

"Jack and Cora have always been the greatest threats," Dodge added in, "even if he never had quite the same fluency with magic as his brother did, Jack is still the Lord of Spades for a reason, and Cora is Queen by her ruthlessness. We've been planning to move since Cora left, your arrival coincided nicely."

"One request," Emma said.

"What?"

She flexed her wrists and clenched her fists, already twitching to hit the Spade. "Leave Jack to me."

"Done," the general replied.

He signaled to Robyn, who slapped the gem in her hands onto the mirror. It reverberated through the looking glass, sending a ripple through, and the first group moved seamlessly through their own reflections.

Robyn held Dodge back at the gate, yanked him close and kissed him somewhat desperately. "Fight well," she murmured when she released him. Dodge nodded and stepped through the mirror, followed closely by the second group.

"What do you say Swan?" Hook asked, "Kiss for luck?"

Emma would be lying if she said she wasn't tempted. Instead, she readjusted her grip on the short sword she'd been given and turned to face the mirror. "Maybe if we get out of this alive," she replied, and stepped through the mirror.

Another noise behind her told her he had followed. "I intend to collect on that when this is over," he told her.

Cora's forces had definitely known they were coming. Their slightly rag-tag group was battling furiously in the open courtyard where the mirror had dumped them out, confronted by soldiers in pristine red, backed by dazed casters in black with hands glowing blue.

"Try not to kill them," Emma said over her shoulder as the mirror they'd come through ejected Hook.

He twirled the blade in his hand, "I won't promise anything," and locked swords with a conveniently nearby soldier. She didn't stick around to watch the rest, engaging another red-clad soldier who seemed determined to part her head with her body.

Someone screamed "Get down!" just before magic started blasting at them picking off Cora's soldiers almost as often as the resistance. A glance up found Jack standing on a balcony, something glowing between his hands

As soon as he ran out of power in whatever spell he was working, Emma was on her feet and working her way toward the side wall. A set of stairs, nearly hidden by a curtain, led upward, so up she raced, trying not to think about what was happening below.

She emerged into a hall nearly identical to the one where the battle was, raised a step. Jack was still standing at the balcony, weaving his hands through the air. Blue streamers followed where his fingers went, and he tied them together in a Gordian knot that simmered with lethal intent.

"So glad you could join me," he said.

Element of surprise lost, Emma charged at him with her blade raised, intending to get in at least one good hit before he could. She got within a few steps before she hit something that sent her flying in one direction, her sword in the other.

"This is what they send against me?" the Spade asked, "a poor broken girl who cannot even control her own magic."

But Emma wasn't listening. He'd shed his coat, draped across the rail, and she'd landed just next to it. She plunged a hand into a pocket and closed her fingers around the gem he'd stolen, then jammed it into the collar still around her neck. There was a single simple click and the metal clattered to the floor.

The magic hit her like a fist to the gut. It surged up under her skin, filling her with a luminosity that threatened to drag her under, similar to the first time it had threatened to pull her down. She couldn't see, couldn't breathe.

But there was no time to drown.

Emma rolled over and blindly flung out a hand in Jack's direction. She'd wanted fire. What came out was a great flash-bang of light that rocked the room.

The Spade did something that detonated next to her, sending shards of stone flying. Emma rolled sideways as he threw another, and tried to pull the magic over herself in some sort of shield.

When the dust had settled, he had turned away from her, weaving a mass of glowing blue streams together in the air in front of him, watching the hall below as he did. First mistake: thinking Emma Swan was going to stay down. She'd been picking herself back up when people knocked her down for her entire life, this was no different.

Jack tugged a snarl out of whatever he was doing and turned around as she pushed herself up. "You are persistent," he said, "I'll give you that. Give up now and I'll even let you live."

She had had quite enough of running. She yanked at the magic, forced it to listen to her, left her fancy castings behind and tackled him bodily through the mirror he was standing beside.

The world turned over, went bright and glittering and faceted. Flashes of places went by, glimpses through silver-tinted frames, as they tumbled through this glittering sharp place. They fell out into someone's living room somewhere, and Jack kicked her off him, turned, and bounded into the mirror across the room.

Emma leapt after him, chasing his coattails through the shining planes.

He snagged a frame and shoved sideways just before leaving a mirror, vanishing through a different one, and she spun out into a marketplace through the original. She caught sight of him a few shops over and raced after him, pushing past people scrambling to get out of the way with their purchases.

Jack glanced back and grinned when he saw her. He pulled one of the buttons off his coat and threw it behind him, and in midair, it roared into a large blue tiger, streaks of silver dappling its flanks. She yanked something that felt sturdy out of a nearby vendor and swung it like she was batting. When they made contact, her stick flared white in the magic that was bubbling over, and the tiger went flying. It shimmered in blue lights where it had fallen, and then disintegrated.

She found the Spade still watching her, but his face had fallen as the easy triumph he'd assumed was his failed him. He turned and ran, and Emma pursued.

It was a little like tag, in a strange, murderous kind of way. Jack scatted spells blindly behind him as they ran through rooms, houses, across streets and into reflecting windows, doing his best to lose or incapacitate her, and Emma threw whatever she had at him whenever she could see him. They dotted fireballs and explosions almost indiscriminately, he stopped for a moment to fill a room with smoke, she managed to produce what felt a lot like a firework, he cast a handful of spikes at her, she somehow managed to rip the roof off a well and just about dropped it on his head. Her aim was slightly off and he escaped into a nearby mirror.

Hook's voice came back to her, whispering in her ear over the clamor of the magic. There are people who can shape this land into whatever form they like. If they could do it, so could she. Emma shut her eyes, grabbed ahold of the mirror she'd just followed him into, and told it to loop over on itself.

Had her magic been any less simmering, Wonderland wouldn't have listened, but as it was the realm fought her for a moment, then relented.

The Lord of Spades came barreling straight back into her. Emma was ready for it, he was not. The look on his face was actually comical as she punched him.

The force of the impact sent them spinning in opposite directions, and he was sucked out through another mirror. She whirled head-over heels once before got her feet under her again and shoved off to go through the same one.

Somewhere someone was laughing, because they were exactly back where they'd started. Jack had already collected himself to his feet when she stumbled out, and he jerked a hand up, the blue weavings he'd started before clenched in his fist. She froze mid-motion, caught in an impossible pose as a feeling like ice snatched at her, leaving only her head her own to move.

"I'll admit," said the Spade, and she was gratified to see that at least he was panting, "you gave me quite a run. I didn't expect you to be that good, but alas, all things must end and this little revolution is no exception."

Hook, who'd been creeping up behind, whopped him over the head with something heavy and metal, from the way it rang and the way Jack just crumbled like his strings had been cut. "Rather puny sorcerer," he commented.

She stumbled as the enchantment that had been holding her in place winked out, dropping her hands to her knees as she tried to catch her breath.

"What took you so long?" she gasped out, reaching down for the collar. The diamonds ran out in a steady stream to clink against the stone, and she carefully stepped over the pile, leaned down, and locked it around Jack's neck.

"Not all of us can run through mirrors like that," the pirate pointed out, "I thought my timing was exceptional."

Emma jerked to a stop as a compulsion seized her, something Wonderland wanted desperately. She shut her eyes and turned away, following the tug of it down hallways, turning and winding at its urging. It was using her, the fact that she wasn't completely in control of her own magic, to get her to dosomething, but it seemed so reasonable that she saw no reason to decline.

She went up several flights of stairs, back down the same set farther than there had been when she started, and up again. By logic, she should have ended up in the same place she started, but instead she was in a part of the palace she'd never seen before, where torches smoked against dull walls and there were cell bars on either side.

The tugging led her down the block, to where a single frame was curled up in the corner of the farthest cell.

The woman sitting in the cell was frail, wispy and frail, but the trail of Wonderland's magic changed around her. Emma pushed on the cell door and in a surge of magic it came completely free from its hinges to clatter against the ground.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The woman looked up, startled as a field mouse. She must have been pretty once, before captivity had rendered her dirty and pale, her once-blonde hair hanging int strings.

"My name is Alyss," she answered, and captivity may have robbed her of her dignity, but even that could not hide the regal bearing beneath, "of Hearts."

She could see a beat thundering in Alyss's chest, magic pulsing there that shouldn't be, dark foreign magic that rang in a different tone from Wonderland's.

"I'm Emma," she soothed, "it's alright now. Cora's gone. You're safe now, Dodge and Robyn have been looking for you."

Alyss huddled further into herself. "Cora will never be gone," she whimpered.

Something wasn't adding up here.

Things we do not wish harmed are best kept in those things that are not. Something the Cat had said to her.

Cora's heart, according to Hook, was not in her chest.

The place where on Alyss, if this was indeed Alyss, where her heart should be throbbed in rhythm with something dark that didn't belong.

An idea sparked in the far reaches of her mind, and she reached forward before she could think better of it. She'd never done this before, but the principle seemed easy enough. Reach in, grab heart.

She extricated it as gently as she could, given the scenario, and it came back pulsing so darkly red it was nearly black.

With the heart in her hand she could see everything that was happening on the other side. Cora raised a hand glowing with magic, Regina standing opposite her with green lightning sparking at her fingertips, Henry tucked behind her like a mother lion protecting her cub. Her parents were there, her father trying to shield her mother.

Cora was going to kill them.

She hesitated, old memories freezing her fingers, but then Cora's heart pulsed triumph in her palm. Emma shut her eyes, unable to look at what she was doing, and closed her fingers.

The heart fought back, years of protective spells interwoven with the muscle, Wonderland's magic sewn in with every breath Alyss took, all resisting her, but Emma was adamant. The false queen of hearts would not harm her family.

The magic surging through her beat at the heart, wearing it down, until it gave in abruptly. Her fingers snapped shut in a bear trap through it, meeting again at her palm with nothing but dust between them.

Suddenly, it was all too much, the magic she'd been fighting rose up to wash over her head in a wave of brightness, sinking her down into the ocean of it.

Twin pools of blue were the last thing she could make out before the darkness claimed her.