Anastasia glanced around, adding, "What is this place anyway?"
"It's called a public library," Will answered. "Rather self-explanatory – you can get books on loan once you have a library card."
"You like books?" Anastasia asked Grace approvingly.
She corrected, "I like stories, and those are often easiest found in books."
"Anywho," Will said loudly, tapping the cover of the book he held as he regained the girls' attention. "This book is…" he looked at Anastasia and she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind and grinned lovingly at him. "It's kind of our story… but at the same time it's not either. It is," here he glanced at Grace. "The closest thing to a story you'll find on us in this realm."
"What about in other realms?" Grace asked, catching the possible implication.
He shrugged. "How should I know? I'd imagine the queen of Wonderland is a topic of conversation in her own realm, though, at least."
"You are the queen of Wonderland, then?"
Anastasia replied, "Only through marriage."
And that was Grace's grain of truth in the midst of the fiction.
Then she was struck with a thought, asking in near-disgust, "How many times have you been married?!"
Will muttered something that he purposely kept unintelligible and Anastasia took a deep breath before she murmured, "Three times – but the king is dead."
"Papa isn't," Grace pointed out dryly.
"We discussed that already, didn't we?" Anastasia asked a little tensely. "He and I will never… get back together."
"Goodness, no!" Grace yelped, scrunching up her nose in distaste. "Zelena is his true love, and you mentioned when we talked yesterday that Will is yours. I'm simply making an observation: Papa is alive."
"Good for him," Will muttered under his breath.
"Stop it," Grace demanded, rolling her eyes at him. "He's no competition to you for her majesty's affections; he hasn't even had Zelena back for very long."
"So you and Zelena are close?" Anastasia asked casually, but Grace was quick to see straight to the heart of the question. Anastasia wanted to know if she had competition for her daughter's affection.
Where do I even begin?
Grace bit back an admittedly mean smirk at the thought and answered simply, "Yeah."
"You're aligning yourself with the Wicked Witch?" Will burst out.
Grace replied evenly, "You're aligning yourself with the Red Queen, and she doesn't seem to be a lily white hero, from what little I can find."
Will's expression twitched with irritation as he looked away from her, muttering another oath under his breath. She had hit a nerve, Grace realized, and probably a decently old one, considering his reaction to it.
"No," Anastasia spoke up carefully, coming around Will to stand between her husband and her daughter as she watched the latter. "I was never that. But in some good stories, there is such a thing as a redemption arc, isn't there? I feel like I had one of those. In any case, my villainous days are over; I achieved what I wanted to. I got back the love of my life."
She gave Will another adoring smile as Grace bit her lip, thinking over the idea of a redemption arc. The Evil Queen, the Wicked Witch, even Rumplestiltskin when Pan was in town… yes, redemption arcs definitely happened. So why not to the Red Queen? Grace had decided to give Anastasia a chance, which meant that she at least had to entertain the idea. Better yet…
She asked curiously, "So what's the story there?"
"Actually," Anastasia remarked. "That story's been recorded – accurately – by a friend of ours. She came to visit me in Wonderland when Will disappeared because Storybrooke's second curse and she brought the book she'd written with her. She thought it might help my grieving somehow, and I brought it here with me because I wanted to show it to Will. It's with my little bundle of things back at his apartment; maybe you'd like to read it yourself? If it's information on me you're looking for, I swear Alice's tale will be more accurate than," she looked again at the book Will held, "Lewis Carroll's."
"Is Alice-the-author's name Alice Liddle? "Grace asked, already anticipating the answer.
"Why, yes!"
"Of course it is," Grace murmured before she stumbled to her feet, allowing the last of the books in her lap to fall as she sighed before informing them, "That sounds like the exact story I want and I'd be more than happy to read it, but I can't go anywhere with you just now. Right now, I have to reshelf these books, and then I'll probably… see if anyone is awake at the Charmings' loft."
"That's where the boy that you mentioned, Henry, lives, right?" Anastasia asked, surprising Grace when she crouched down to help her pick up the books on the floor.
"Yeah, with… geez, let me think. Snow White, Prince Charming, their two children, and their daughter's husband."
"He was the man who swept you away yesterday?"
"Baelfire," Grace said fondly. "He's… important to me."
"As good as your father-in-law, from what I've seen of you and Henry around town," Will volunteered dryly.
Grace bit back a grin and didn't even bother to deny it. Long gone were the days when she and Henry met only in relative secrecy, and she was glad. What she did say was, "He's helped me through some things, or helped me deal with some of the facts of my life, I suppose you could say."
"Such as?" Anastasia asked, both of them standing as she gestured for Grace to lead the way to the proper bookshelf.
Grace headed in the desired direction and Will and Anastasia trailed her as she answered, "His father's the Dark One; mine is the Mad Hatter. That can be a little unnerving, and quite frankly it puts a rather impressive damper on one's social life. There had been some issues that we've just been able to bond over through that. Having Henry around to introduce us has honestly just been reduced to a jumping off point over the years, and I mean that in the best possible way."
"Are there any other parental figures we should know about?"
The blunt question from Will surprised Grace, as did the sheer number of faces that flew through her mind's eye, and she leaned against the bookshelf to consider it.